Between Lands: Revolution In The Streets of Cairo

“his pictures exposed the strong collective need to take to the streets to give a voice to human rights.”

 

Enfin Libre is written on a wall of Tunis. Maybe the process to democracy will be long and full of difficulties, but Arab Spring can be considered a big movement of ethical and political protest in the name of freedom. In Arab countries, revolts rose quickly and inexorably to stop autocrats who imposed their authority with force in an attempt to stop repression, lies, authoritarianism, corruption and injustice. Spontaneous and without leaders, arab revolution made people feel united, no longer subjected under a despicable power. Everyone could finally dream of freedom, as people shouted out their own needs, hopes, breaking that wall of silence which lasted for years in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Libya.

Loris Savino’s research describes this strong awakening starting from protests which began the revolution. Taken in the middle of the riots, put close to one another and without a respecting a linear time line, his pictures exposed the strong collective need to take to the streets to give a voice to human rights. Savino’s second part of the project documents the end of the early euphoria surrounding the big protests in the square and the warring, rough, bloody repressions that set in thereafter. Savino’s peculiar photographic work contains very, powerful images.  They are self-aware of being a sort of anti-reportage and very close to documentary photography; free of personal expression and the anxiety of the perfect moment. His photography is a very simple, clear research of reality, presented to the public. His images do not only reveal rebels and facts, but also signs left by their actions: Gaddafi’s destroyed bunker in Bengasi; a glorious Libyan monument drilled by shots; abandoned barricades in the streets of Cairo and so on.  

War is actually not just a series of dramatic events, shooting, shouts, blood, deaths – but is also its aftermath.  An aftermath marked by a strange moment of instability, fear and pain, restlessness in the streets and in the eyes of people. War is also a sort of escape from itself, as thousands of Libyans have escaped to seek shelter in Tunisia, where they have made a regular tent city. War is also the refugees who have arrived in Lampedusa, with their hopes and memories. Behind them, the presence of people who did not make it, disappeared during the war, which no picture can ever show us. Yet we can hear their silent, painful presence when photography, like Savino’s, is able to call attention and question the events and dramas.