There have been so many ways to narrate migrations. In the last century photography has recorded the stories of those people forced to abandon their lands of origin – because of war, globalization, famine etc. etc. The project of friend photographer Nino Romeo does not focus on people’s faces – the chosen solution by the press and the media – but he prefers to “interrogate” objects that were washed up or abandoned on the beaches. In 2016 Romeo turns up with his camera, a Nikon Coolpix P7800, on the iconic beaches and bays of Capo Teulada, South-west Sardinia, in the places where a landing occurred. Shoes, t-shirts, plastic bottles now faded by the Mediterranean sun seem to have become part of the local wilderness: there is a delicate sense of continuity between the human need/urgency to migrate and Mother Nature’s unchanging and apolitical welcome. Nino Romeo does not judge what he sees; but his twenty color frames launch a cry of alarm to civil society.
NINO ROMEO, Droit au but. Io nato in occidente/Uccidente e i fratelli migranti nati nel mondo di sotto, Abnormal Edizioni 2018
Photos: © Nino Romeo
