Martina Bacigalupo's Headless Photo Archive at Cortona On The Move

The Gulu Real Art Studio exhibition by Martina Bacigalupo is presented at Palazzo Baldelli as part of the 12th edition of the Cortona On The Move international photography festival, running until October 2, 2022, with Medici Senza Frontiere as charity partner. The festival, curated for the first time by Paolo Woods alongside Veronica Nicolardi, explores the theme of photographic representation. Bacigalupo's project originated in 2010-11 in Gulu, northern Uganda, where she was on assignment for Human Rights Watch documenting the lives of women with disabilities. She discovered discarded passport photos at the Gulu Real Art Studio, founded in the 1970s by the father of current owner Obal Denis. The headless portraits resulted from clients needing only one photo for official purposes—bank accounts, school enrollment, or cattle theft claims—and the photographer cut off the heads to save costs. Bacigalupo collected these scraps over two to three years and interviewed some of the subjects. The images, published as a book by Steidl/The Walther Collection in 2013, reveal multiple narratives: the Acholi ethnic group's near-genocide under President Yoweri Museveni, the economic hub of Gulu after South Sudan's independence, and the absurdity of a blue blazer and tie required for Barclays Bank photos. Bacigalupo, a photojournalist with VU' agency since 2010, emphasizes that the work challenges singular Western narratives about Africa.