maria teresa gavazzi :
photography :
Manoscritto :  97
Manuscript, was conceived as a book and I would like it to be presented as such. It was produced between 1997 and 2000 by approaching people in the streets of several cities in Europe (Sarajevo, Athens, London, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Lisbon) asking them to write something of their own mind on their own hand, just as if it were a piece of paper. My overriding idea was that anybody, neither writer nor artist, could become an author of my Manuscript. In black and white during the day and in colour at night, it brought me to clasp the hands of 379 with my camera, to stop again at least three times as many, to take close to 1800 photographs, to speak at least 4 languages and to mimic roughly the same number, to exchange opinions and information with 66 different nationalities, to picnic with families of Palestinians in the Tiergarten in Berlin, to exchange recipes with Kurd cooks in the market place in Athens, to discuss politics with Angolan and Guinea immigrants in the cafes of Lisbon.

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