Ten’s To See: The Palm* Photo Prize Exhibition At 10 14 Gallery

What does it mean to you to win the People’s Choice Award?

It is very exciting, knowing that your work resonates with the general public. It is a beautiful opportunity to present a different perspective. I think that is what is sought, to tell a story that moves the public. [Looking at] that beach, [you can almost hear] the waves, feel the salt, [which] takes you back to the day the photograph was taken. It is also one more step towards achieving my dreams and as a proud Venezuelan, [I’m excited] to make my mark.

What is the story behind your entry?

I wanted to work on a photograph in El Puerto de La Vela, but I couldn’t find the right inspiration. Taking a walk through the city, I came across an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the ideas came together.

What drives you to take photographs?

Being able to tell many stories in an image, it gives voice to the ideas in my head. It gives them shape and structure, it makes people question themselves and give their opinions.

What do you hope people feel when they look at your winning entry?

I feel like you can never control what people think. That’s what’s interesting, dealing with people who don’t know what’s behind a photograph and then they themselves build their story.

As a Venezuelan photographer, how does your heritage affect the photographs you take?

It is very difficult for me to work without the past. I cannot see the future, so I look to the past as an answer to many of my questions. I feel a shared responsibility with other colleagues and great photographers from my country, who are telling stories of people. It is a responsibility to tell unique stories, to make my culture known, to set precedents in my town. Photography can make people discover what they feel inside, how hard it is to reach. I have the intention of rescuing the past, in an anthropological way, like finding a relic in a forgotten drawer.

Congratulations on your Special Mention! How does it feel to have your work recognised by tastemakers like Alastair McKimm and Emma Bowkett?

It was a real honor for me to be judged by these great tastemakers. I take pictures for my own need, because I deeply love life, losing myself in it, observing it and telling it. I am already satisfied by the idea of doing something that makes me happy and that allows me to connect in such a strong and authentic way with myself and with the world. Photo contexts should also have the aim of comparing you directly with experts and professionals in the sector, making you realize that what you tell and above all how you tell it, has its value even outside of you. When this value is recognized in this way, it is truly exciting.

What is the story behind your entry?

I have been telling stories about Palermo for several years. It is the city that allowed me to start taking pictures. I feel deeply connected to Palermo and I love finding the stories hidden in its streets. With this story I wanted to focus on an aspect that I have always felt and experienced firsthand in Palermo: the deep bond that you can feel between this city and women. The image that was awarded by the judges of Palm Studios is in fact part of a story about a group of little girls growing up in Danisinni, a complex neighborhood of Palermo, Sicily. It is a story about freedom, about the rebirth of a place, about Palermo, and its feminine power. Danisinni, a neighborhood of Arab origin, stands on a natural depression, as it was once the bed of Papireto, one of the rivers that ran through Palermo. Mainly because of the morphology of the land, Danisinni over time has remained isolated from the rest of the city, almost suspended between the green of its fields and Palermo historic center. Its isolation is anomalous given that the neighborhood is within walking distance of the cathedral and the city historic center. It is a place that has long been trying to revive and regain its strong identity. Various forces have in recent years chosen to plant seeds here, starting with Brother Mauro (a Capuchin friar), working hard daily, focusing on the neighborhood’s resources, beauty, children and youth, and art declined in all its forms.

Women are often the focus of your images – why is it important to you to centre women at the heart of your work?

Above all, I wanted to talk about these girls who resist, who grow like wildflowers, who spread their light, who fill the neighborhood with their voices, who draw their ancestral strength from some unknown energy that Palermo hides within itself. And you can read that strength in their looks, in their gestures, in the aura that surrounds them. I wanted to tell the days that pass, never the same but always in the same streets, the complicity, their codes and purity, the disruptive, light-filled emotions that remind us that life, in its essence, is nothing but this.

I think I have always been drawn, even unconsciously, to approach the female universe, because I live it, I know it, because my story is that of a woman, like the ones I tell. I have been telling the story of all the women in my family in Sicily for about 14 years (from the youngest to the oldest) and so, if I think about it, I started right from the walls of my home. The story is called “Females, a Sicilian story”. And while I began to tell the Sicilian interiors of my house and “my women”, at the same time I began to explore the streets of Palermo and Southern Italy.

In a completely natural way, I was captivated by the stories of women, by their looks, by their contradictions, by their ability to resist, overturn, revolutionize, protect, mend. Women, especially here in the South, have something mysterious that surrounds them, they carry with them primordial secrets. They know how to live, they know how to survive, and they know how to be reborn. They have a strength that cannot be explained, it is there for some reason, and they are its bearers. I am attracted by this vital energy that, like an invisible cloak, covers everything. I imagine Palermo as a woman with big dark eyes, with her hair tied up badly, who angrily yells at someone for some reason and then immediately turns around looking at you and smiling endlessly.

What drives you to take photos?

My photography is driven by a deep need for knowledge, by an unbridled curiosity about life. I love to observe it in silence. The anthropological aspect is inherent in my constant photographic research. Taking pictures is a deep need of mine, it calms me down or moves me brutally, it excites me or moves me deeply. Photography lets me “get closer”, it lets me understand the world and at the same time myself, without reservations, without judgments, with deep respect and love.I am interested in pure street scenes full of essence, portraits extrapolated from life as it flows, as well as the most intimate and long-term stories where I enter on tiptoe. I am interested in human relationships. I am fascinated by cracks, imperfections. I believe that the most intense light enters from there. I am interested in humanity, contradictions, beauty where it seems there is none, the poetry inherent in life itself, in the striking moments as in those in which nothing happens.The streets dazzled by the sun, the warm interiors, the endless cigarettes slowly consumed, the Madonnas that come from the sea, the surreal scenes, the indecipherable and bewitching women, the chaos, the suspension of the suburbs. I am interested in the South that unfolds the authentic, fascinating, mystical life, sometimes broken, other times healed, but always sincere.

How has your Sicilian heritage influenced your photography?

My photography is inextricably linked to Sicily and my being Sicilian. I would like the vibrations of the South and my Sicily to be perceived in every image. The atmospheres of the Mediterranean are part of my heritage, my imagination, my vision. Sicilian reality is imbued with contradictions, passion, suspension, energy. Since I started taking photographs, I have tried to do it freely and without superstructures, trying to find my point of view and my language, pursuing it, letting myself be carried away by my instinct, by my pure and personal vision. But more than anything else, in every image I try to convey the strength that I perceive in my land, that passes through me and that I try to return in the fragments of life that I collect.

Congratulations on winning the INK New Talent Award. How will their support impact your creative practice? 

Thank you! I usually handle all the retouching myself, so I’m excited to collaborate with them on this project. It’s a great opportunity to bring fresh perspectives into the process.

What is the story behind ‘Atlanta Made Us Famous’?

“Atlanta Made Us Famous” is a photo series I started to shine a light on the important role dancers play in Atlanta’s hip-hop scene. My journey began in 2018 when I first visited the city and spent time at places like Magic City, a legendary strip club. Interestingly, Magic City was right across the street from the photo studio where I was interning. Even before I knew this, visiting Magic City was at the top of my list when I got to Atlanta—I had been thinking about documenting it for years. Before this project, I had already photographed and worked with artists like Young Thug, Playboi Carti, and the Migos, so being able to visit the landmarks these artists reference in their music felt like a full-circle moment for me. I spent time with the dancers, getting to know their lives both inside and outside the club. My aim was to offer a fresh perspective, showcasing these women as stars of the culture, with stories and impact that extend well beyond hip-hop.

There is a real sense of female power and strength in your entry. How do you ensure this comes through in your work?

This comes naturally when you’re a woman photographing other women.

How does it feel to have your work included in the 1014 Exhibition happening in September?

Having my work included in the 1014 Exhibition is incredibly exciting and validating. It feels great to have my work displayed alongside so many talented photographers who are reflecting a new generation of image-makers.