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CORPI DI REATO (BODY OF EVIDENCE)
Photographs: Tommaso Bonaventura and Alessandro Imbriaco
Curated by: Fabio Severo
A visual archaeology of the mafia phenomena in present-day Italy.
For a long time the mafia has been perceived as a scattered, multiform, almost invisible entity. After the 1990s and the height of a
sweep of bloodshed, organized crime in Italy slowly changed its appearance and began to blend in with the political and economic
fabric of the country.
Corpi di reato proposes to contrast this dispersion and restore a tangible sightline of the mafia by retracing the marks it left around the
country. It also aims to show the void, the emptiness, that these criminal acts provoked: empty rooms of city councils that were dissolved
due to ties to the mafia; seized construction sites; geographical locations of fugitive sightings and the search for hideouts mapped by police
investigations.
The need to visualize the aftermath of what years of war against the mafia have produced yields a mosaic of courtrooms, physical and
material evidence, car skeletons, mug shots, mausoleums dedicated to heroes, and bunkers. Photographs can convey examples of the
explicit nature of the mafia phenomenon and at the same time depict the confines beyond which everything disappears once again.
They can define the thin, shadowy line beyond which the mafia vanishes and slips silently into daily routine.
As far back as ten years ago, it was said that the mafia was becoming invisible, concealed behind a mask of normality. Corpi di reato attempts
to reproduce the mafia through images that create a visual thread joining the slew of massacres that occurred twenty years ago to the grey
area where it thrives today.
For over forty years, Corleone was the stronghold of the so-called Corleonesi clan, generator of the bloodiest Mafia war against the Italian State in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
The files of the maxiprocesso in Palermo (Maxi Trial). They are kept at the Centro Internazionale di Documentazione sulle Mafie (CIDMA - The International Centre of Documentation Regarding Mafia and Anti-Mafia Movement),
in Corleone. The trial took place between February 10, 1986, and December 16, 1987, in a bunker-courthouse inside the Ucciardone prison: 474 defendants were indicted, 119 of which in absentia; 2,665 years of sentences were
served for 360 convicted; over 19 life sentences were given to the leading bosses including Michele Greco and the fugitives, Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. The criminal trial included 349 hearings in the span of 22
months, 35 days in Council Chambers, and 6,901 pages for the draft of the verdicts. Appeals would carry on until 1992.
Tommaso Bonaventura
A professional photographer since 1992, he has collaborated with the leading national and international publications. In 2004 he won first
prize in the Arts and Entertainment section of the World Press Photo with a photograph taken from his book Le vie della fede. In 2010 he won
the Sony Award with a series of portraits taken during his frequent trips to China.
Alessandro Imbriaco
With a degree in engineering, he has worked as a photographer since 2008 focusing primarily on urban landscapes and different ways of living.
His work has received many awards and has been shown in numerous national and international exhibitions. He has been represented by Contrasto
since 2008 and is distributed by the Forma Gallery in Milan.
Fabio Severo
Editor of the contemporary photography blog “Hippolyte Bayard”, he teaches history of photography at the Istituto Europeo di Design and has
collaborated with various photographic publications including RVM (Rear View Mirror Magazine), and the online magazines, Unless You Will,
GUPMagazine, Dide, and E-photoreview.
The illegal waste dump in Via Molinara in Desio. In 2008 the District Attorney’s office in Monza discovered illegal trafficking of waste in an area covering 30,000
m2 bought by affiliates of the Calabrian Iamonte-Moscato clan. The land, where various types of toxic substances are believed to be present, is still sequestrated
pending financing for reclamation operations.
The ‘Ndrangheta Ionica-Reggina clans have been infiltrating the public works sector of the region for years, including the project for the modernization of state route 106.
It exercises widespread control over the stages of the works that range from making concrete, to hiring, to construction site supplies, as well as subcontracting and rentals. This abandoned road construction site is situated on the “Ionica” 106 highway in Calabria. In 2007 it was sequestered to inspect the collapse of a tunnel caused by
the use of detuned cement. In a wiretap, Vincenzo Capozza, director of ANAS (National Autonomous Roads Corporation) stated, “The reverse arch should have continued
like the front and the galleries should have been at a distance of 50 m… if you miscalculate, this is the result.” Then he advances a strategy to escape responsibility, “No,
we’ll blame it on the mountain, that’s for sure, it’s obvious…” Capozzo has been arrested. The construction site is still abandoned.
In 1980 the Mafia boss Raffaele Cutolo bought the Castello Mediceo in Ottaviano in the hinterlands of Naples, where he established the headquarters of the Nuova
Camorra Organizzata (New Organized Camorra). The castle (also called the Prince’s Palace) was confiscated in 1991 and given to the town of Ottaviano. It later
became the Centre of the Vesuvio National Park.
CORPI DI REATO is a project by ZONA
Zona is sensitive to new languages in photography, video, and journalism and to the need to share know-how and information between professionals.
Founded on values based on ethics and knowledge, Zona is open to traditional photographic and audio-visual material, to resources obtained through
the research and study of well known and lesser-known photographic material, as well as to experimental creative languages.
zona.org
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[email protected]
www.zona.org/progetti/corpi-di-reato/