Dear Diane and Shaded Viewers
Vanessa Winship, British photograher and two time winner of the Magnum Press Prize's exhibition opened last night at Mc2 gallery. She lived and worked in Turkey for almost ten years portraying couples of schoolgirls exclusively. The novice schoolmates stand very close to each other at the "border"between their own territory (in the background), their poor classroom and the misery of the actual female condition in the Turkesh countryside. They seem to look straight into the eyes of the observers. Vanessa's black and white images come from a very distant place,somewhere between fiction and reality. The photos show the school friends dressed in their dark uniforms, with their lace collars embroidered with delicate messages of old national symbols. The images sometimes show the sweetness of hope or the aloof bitter resignation and disturbing obsessiveness.
Vito Montedoro
