Luisa Menazzi Moretti's 'Io sono' Migrant Portraits Arrive in Naples

Luisa Menazzi Moretti's itinerant exhibition 'Io sono' has reached Naples after stops in Matera, Potenza, and Lecce. The solo show features twenty nearly life-size photographs from a 2017 reportage on migrants. Each subject holds an object representing their story: Tresor from Congo carries a computer with photos of his deceased wife and child; Adama from Senegal, forced to flee an arranged marriage, traveled through Gambia, Mali, Niger, and Libya before reaching Italy. The exhibition spans four rooms, giving voice to lives from Afghanistan, Nepal, Syria, Ivory Coast, Pakistan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. It includes the story of Egyptian Said, arrested for helping migrants at sea. The project received two honorable mentions at the International Photography Awards in New York: one for the video 'Io sono/I am' (also a Bronze at One Eyeland) and one for photographs in the People-Other category. Menazzi Moretti began photography while studying in Houston, later moving to London and Italy. Her earlier project 'Ten years and eighty-seven days' (2016) documented death row prisoners in Livingston, Texas. The exhibition is documented in a 2017 book and will travel to Milan after Naples.