ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Salvatore Mancini
Looking back throughout
my 40 years of photographing what do I see through that clear reflective
lens of time? From my first photograph in1967, a self-portrait with
dark glasses and a beret, to one of my recent photographs, a self-portrait
in the Rat Temple in Bikaner, India, the one word that jumps out at
me is remembrance. Every photograph I’ve taken is an act of remembrance.
I want to remember my passage on this earth. I want to remember the
journey of my life, who I was, where I’ve been, what I thought, what
I felt, what I dreamed and what inspired me. I want to remember all
of my relationships, family, lovers and friends.
I don’t want to forget what the experience of living has been all about.
I want to remember all those experiences that formed my identity, from
my childhood origins to my adulthood travels. I want to remember all
the questions I had, who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we
going? I want photographs to represent those questions and their conclusions.
I want to remember every sight and insight along my human journey.
I’ve been given
the freedom to explore and make visible many of the yearnings that make
life fulfilling, and at times painful. The act of photographing keeps
me a few steps back from the void of self alienation, slows down the
transient sense of time, and puts a frame around my memories.
To photograph is
to remember and I with a photograph remember …
The moment when
naked I pretended to fly off the Grand Canyon.
When I first saw the cypress trees of Point Lobos or the full moon rising
over a boulder in Utah, inscribed with a procession of galloping horses.
Beholding the human fragility and strength in the faces of the mentally
ill and retarded.
Seeing the body of a recently murdered young woman, a victim of gang
violence.
Viewing a devotional procession to the Madonna della Civita, the patron
saint of Itri, Italy.
Walking through the stone doorway of an Incan city in the jungles of
Peru.
Seeing people being blessed by temple elephants in India.
A jellyfish being transformed into a jewel by sunlight.
Discovering industrial archeology in the forgotten rivers of Rhode Island.
A diver suspended in the sky over Narragansett Bay.
What my parents looked like before they died.
I want to remember
it all, and photography has made this possible.