B. TORONTO, CANADA , 1987; LIVES IN BRATISL AVA , SLOVAKIA
Part archive and part travelogue, Deanna Pizzitelli’s “Koža, Women & Other Stories” deploys photographs to document her travels, wanderings, and archival explorations. She calls her disjointed and sometimes chaotic approach to storytelling “photographic unrest,” and she interweaves pictures to produce fractured narratives that explore isolation, loss, uncertainty, trauma, and desire. She embraces the experiments and accidents of the darkroom, seeing such mishaps as an emotional metaphor for the changeability and incomprehensibility of human experience.
Moving from Canada to Slovakia in 2015. Pizzitelli began to produce poetic work that explored severed connections, loneliness, and a longing for human companionship. The word “koža” in her title means skin in Slovak, and by using it Pizzitelli meant to refer to physical touch and intimacy. The varied images in “Koža” derive from folk culture, vernacular sources, and historical archives. At the Archive of Modern Conflict in Toronto, she re-photographed objects related to the history of war. From such diverse and complex historical sources, and from her exploration of the materiality of the analogue photograph, Pizzatelli’s work tells a sweeping story of loss, regret, memory, and longing.
This installation is part of the exhibition Parallel Lives: Photography, Identity, and Belonging, curated by Maya Benton. Parallel Lives draws attention to complex notions of community and belonging, and in particular how our social and familial relationships have been reimagined as a result of the conditions of isolation and uncertainty imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Photo: Deanna Pizzitelli, untitled