Essential Nudity


  • Photographer
    Katia Celestini
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Date of Photograph
    01/02/2013
  • Technical Info
    Digital photography

Set of five self-portraits in digital photography that are part of a project that celebrates the Day of Remembrance.

Story

The story of this project began on January 27th, 2013.
I had decided to make some shots to celebrate the "Day of Remembrance" in memory of the Shoah, the extermination of the Jewish people, and its end on 27 January 1945, when the gates of Auschwitz were demolished and the death camp was liberated .
I've started thinking about what I wanted to photograph to remember this day and, almost without realizing it, I was looking at my hands, remembering that to the prisoners deported to concentration camps, was tattooed a number on their left forearm in substitution of the name. A serial number was all that remained of the identity and dignity of a man. An anonymous stone on which a prisoner has written with a nail the sentence: "Who will ever know what happened to me here?" was found in Auschwitz.
I was thinking about this phrase, when I've realized the importance that can have a gesture, when remains only this for hanging on to a thread of hope and to our dignity.
I have created a series of shots using my hands, because, between the five senses, touch is the one that more than the others gives us the perception of reality, and it helps us to feel it when everything becomes darkness, black, despair.
So I've photographed hands that come out from the dark, hands that seem to pierce the screen to escape from it and ideally looking for the reassuring touch of other hands, of other men like us. I've imagined that one day someone, looking at these pictures, can put his hand on mine, just as we have put our eyes on the words written long time ago by an unknown prisoner whose words, desperate and strong, didn't fall into oblivion, but they continue to survive in the memory for centuries. For never to forget.

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