Francesco Merlini: On Aftermath Photography
Interviews
More about the artist:
Francesco Merlini (b.1986, Italy) is a Milan-based photographer who focuses on long-term documentary projects that merge the worlds of both photojournalism and the symbolic. Recently, together with VOID, he published a photobook ‘The Flood’, featuring images from Georgia’s capital – Tbilisi. Particularly, his project showcases the consequences and the background of the city’s major flooding in 2015. At the time, the Vere River spilled over due to a huge landslide that happened near the city. Consequently, many parts of Tbilisi were damaged, including the local zoo in which many animals died while others escaped.
After the tragedy, the Georgian media showed only a linear narrative centred around the lost lives of humans and the destruction while the foreign media focused on the animals that escaped from the zoo. Merlini, therefore, critically approaches the media reproduction of the event and instead, he presents his own perspective.
In an interview with Discarded Magazine, we discuss the artist’s approach to aftermath photography in relation to his photobook.
Linda Zhengová:
Since ‘The Flood’ focuses on a peculiar story from Georgia’s history, how did the project come about?
Francesco Merlini:
In 2017 I went to Tbilisi for the first time. At the time I had read something about the catastrophe, but I started to explore the city without focusing on it. The old traditional Georgian neighbourhoods of the city centre are now joined by modern buildings. The suburbs witness the Soviet period and its painful consequences on the country. But when I visited the zoo and its neighbourhood, I was shocked by what I saw there.
The recurring elements I’ve found in other parts of the city are there clouded by something that just happened, its wounds were still fresh and agonizing: the flood of 2015. On one side there was the zoo with its rusty carousels from the Soviet period, many empty derelict cages, piles of mud and ruins, and the saddest and most stressed animals that I ever met in my life. On the other side a huge muddy crack in the landscape surrounded by huge buildings in balance on the edges of it: the place where the Vere river flows and where it flooded. After this encounter I decided that I would have to come back to Tbilisi in order to work on this story and so in 2018, after a long period of research, I was there again.
[…] I focus on the animals as the consequences of the flood and the years of captivity are visible in their eyes and behaviour.
Linda Zhengová:
In your publication, you entirely avoid humans, why so? Instead, I see that your depictions of the animals captivated in the zoo function as a sort of metaphor for people. I assume this based on the human-animal illustration on the cover and the animals’ human-like expressions in your photographs…
Francesco Merlini:
I could have photographed survivors or people who lost a relative because of the flood but I was not interested in taking staged empathic portraits in their house or photographs of them staring at a pile of dry mud. I focused rather on the animals as the consequences of the flood and the years of captivity are visible in their eyes and behaviour. When I went to the enclave outside Tbilisi where most of the biggest and most dangerous animals have been relocated after the flood, I photographed the bears that live in the same corral with the wolves because they do not have enough space for all the animals.
Since wolves are much faster than bears, when the staff throw food over the fence the wolves eat most of the food, and the bears, in order to be able to eat something, with hysterical moves bring the food in a fountain and eat it with the head underwater. Similar situations can be found all over the zoo. I also provocatively decided to focus on animals because, starting with the quote of Jonatan Jones at the beginning of the book, the audience does not care anymore about the human victims of a catastrophe but “…a hippo being shot with a tranquilizer dart in a flooded city street is another matter entirely.”
Originating from these considerations, the illustration on the cover with a creature that is a mix of a human and a snake also refers to the guilt that follows many people, especially politicians and other powerful people of Tbilisi.
[…] I portray humans without looking for an emotive connection. Instead, I use them as raw material and through such interaction, I transform them into collective metaphors and archetypes about a concept I want to express.
Linda Zhengová:
I sense there is a strong tension between the humans vs. nature dichotomy in your work. Could you please elaborate on this relationship and your ways of portraying it through the medium?
Francesco Merlini:
Nowadays the “Human vs. Nature” theme is central in our present history and in the photographic practice as well, especially in the documentary field. In my projects, this topic is often present. However, I always try to unbalance the viewer, to create a short circuit inverting the conventional approach that most photographers use to portray nature or humanity. I usually try to process natural subjects with empathy – looking for levels of reading that tend to belong to the human sphere while on the other side it happens very often that I portray humans without looking for an emotive connection. Instead, I use them as raw material and through such interaction, I transform them into collective metaphors and archetypes about a concept I want to express.
Linda Zhengová:
All your photographs are black and white, or more precisely, grey, and black. What does this unifying greyness signify for you?
Francesco Merlini:
I experimented a lot in order to find a visual language that would have highlighted this story until I decided to focus on the greyness in order to evoke the patina that a flood leaves on everything it hits.
[…] I decided to focus on the greyness in order to evoke the patina that a flood leaves on everything it hits.
Linda Zhengová:
In terms of genre, the photographs that comprise ‘The Flood’ can be categorized as aftermath photography – portraying an event after it happened and perhaps its ongoing impact on the place and its inhabitants. What do you think this genre can achieve in relation to our memories of specific events?
Francesco Merlini:
Of course, “aftermath photography” is maybe the best definition for this project even if, starting from the visual representation of the effects and consequences of the flood, the narration then extended its branches towards the possible causes that are strictly linked to the historical, political and social background of this region of the world. So, I started my exploration of Tbilisi with a journalistic and investigative approach collecting photographs strictly related to the various aspects of this tragedy but later I decided to enlarge my photographic research.
There is nothing fictional in my narration but starting from the objective reality of the event, I decided to include also my subjective reading of the city, a reading that includes also other elements that speak of the past, the present, and maybe the future of this country to explain why a catastrophe like this happened. I think that giving suggestions about the possible causes of a dramatic event like this, is the most important achievement that this genre can reach.
Linda Zhengová:
Time seems to be an important aspect in your project. Specifically, the interplay of past and present is demonstrated in a single place. How do you approach it photographically when visualizing both at the same time?
Francesco Merlini:
In this case, most of the aspects that are connected to the past have been defined with the extensive research I did before going back to Tbilisi. I defined a sort of skeleton of subjects, directly related to the event, that would have guided me during my photographic journey. What instead is connected to the present and that works on a more evocative level, is the consequence of fortuitous encounters, my photographic sensibility on the field, and my visual background that filled the empty space between the keystones of the journalistic story.
Linda Zhengová:
‘The Flood’ has now become a photobook… What would you say is the goal of your publication?
Francesco Merlini:
It has been great to work with the team of Void in order to transform this project in a photobook, creating something that because of the editing and the design can speak to a larger audience with a stronger voice. I do not have a specific goal, but I come from Italy, a country like many all over the world, where hydrogeologic tragedies like this, continue to happen every year. The causes are the lack of water holding capacity along the course of the river due to deforestation, old infrastructure, poor maintenance, weak planning controls, and extensive and often illegal development that impacted the riverbed. In a few words, the causes are human greed and stupidity and I really hope this book can produce a positive change in this direction.
‘The Flood’ is available for purchase here.