It is the (almost) impossible journey, the one to the south of our world, but a south made of ice, difficult to visit, if not for very few and only in this season. Manfredi Gioacchini – photographer, documentary maker, 34 years spent between Rome, where he is at home, and the United States, the ideal base for his author reportages – just a year ago he succeeded in the achievement of “The journey of a lifetime” (physical and existential, as pursued and realized in a particularly delicate moment, after the painful loss of the mother).
In December 2019 all the covid had not changed our world: the planes traveled at every latitutine, the icebreakers and the ships of the scientific expeditions to the South Pole proceeded. Manfredi Gioacchini is on a journey and that journey is fixed in the photographs printed now in book Floating Islands, that we show you in the gallery. They tell us about pure, uncontaminated spaces (even today Antarctica is the only covid free continent…). They also tell us a lot about what we have become today, or risk becoming, if we forget where we came from and what we depend on..
The first thing to know about Antarctica is that traveling there is expensive but possible, if you have good intentions and a lot of tenacity: Manfredi Gioacchini found in Antarctic21 the right company to leave with and embarked on the ship’s first official voyage, the Magellan Explorer (you can also see her immortalized in one of her shots). “Usually in Antarctica we move with icebreakers, which however also have a heavy environmental impact: I was on a “hybrid” boat, the first of its kind, which does not release the heat produced outside, thus heating the ice, but recycles it for internal activities on the boat»Says Gioacchini. Flying from Chile, he visited the White Continent for a week that sounds cloying to define unforgettable but gives the idea.
Wake up early (“because the light of dawn is unique”) and then aboard the zodiacs, the rafts that are used to observe the ice up close and land on land: two excursions a day, one in the morning, the other in the afternoon. Each time, in the company of some German researchers, they went a few kilometers further, because the Magellan Explorer wanted to live up to its name and explored different areas. “The first twilight is never forgotten: that purple sunset that can only be seen there», Says Gioacchini.
No penguins, no killer whales (which even the photographer saw in abundance, along the way): in his artistic shots the primordial elements prevail: ice, water, light, sky. Always the same, always different.
They are images made with no effort: it is not easy to keep the cameras at those temperatures (in December the averages are between -26 and -29, the so-called “Antarctic summer”, in winter they even drop to -60). The images that we show you here were shot digitally but in the future, as soon as possible, other shots taken in analogue, in film, will flow into an exhibition.
“I also captured the sound of an iceberg breaking with the mobile phone I had with me – says Gioacchini -, but I would like it to be clear that my work is not a mere act of denunciation of the danger of melting ice due to global warming . We are all aware of this by now, fortunately. This reportage is an act of love and hope: Antarctica is the continent that includes all continents, because we depend on its destiny. There, in those absurd temperatures and so far from our usual world, I felt at home and felt an inner peace never felt before. For me it is the most beautiful place in the world ».
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