Raffaele PIEMONTE

In this series of photographs, I try to portray moments of everyday life where space is hostile and time fragments. Eternal waits alternate with necessary frenzies, relaxed expressions with convulsive grimaces. Because clandestinity makes one hypersensitive to suspicious noises. Because no one wants to meet the border police. Because no one wants to be deported, robbed, beaten, dehumanised, manhandled. Because nobody deserves to be deported, robbed, beaten, dehumanised manhandled.

Inshallah Europe, tomorrow. This past autumn, I was in Serbia with the non-governmental organisation ‘No Name Kitchen’, which was founded eight years ago in Belgrade as a travelling kitchen for people on the Balkan route. After the Serbian government made this form of support illegal for ‘sanitary reasons’, the organisation changed its approach, providing food to be cooked in Jungles, medical assistance, distribution of basic necessities, walking showers and emotional support. It is currently also active in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Trieste, Ventimiglia and Ceuta and, thanks to testimonies collected on the ground, has collaborated with ‘The Guardian’, as well as intervened at the ECHR to testify about systematic violations at the Franco-Italian border.