ANDREA DE FRANCISCIS
WHEN THE PEACOCKS DANCE
WHEN THE PEACOCKS DANCE
PHOTOGRAPHY : ANDREA DE FRANCISCIS
EDITORIAL : LIFE FRAMER & ANDREA DE FRANCISCIS
We’re delighted to announce Andrea de Franciscis as the winner of our Edition VIII Series Award with his series When The Peacocks Dance, judged by Kinuko Asano, Artistic Director at Écho 119 Gallery in Paris, and art historian and journalist Zoé Isle de Beauchaine.
With his powerful and coherent body of work it is clear that Andrea de Franciscis has carefully considered his series both as individual images and as a whole. His manual interventions made to each scene are anything but incidental here – the choices made in the processing of the images (the use of flash, colour, framing, the effects of shadows creating silhouettes etc.) evoking the effervescence and chaos described in his introductory text. The form truly serves the purpose. Andrea is a photographer who knows what he wants to express and how he wants to do it. He has created a work that we found great pleasure in discovering.
Over the centuries, the West has nurtured a stereotyped image of India: an exotic land of holy men, elephants and spirituality. “When the Peacocks Dance” puts together images taken all over the subcontinent, trying to portray its frenzied madness and striking harmony. India is a booming country of 1.38 billion people: a fast-growing economy that in the past decades has brought millions of people out of poverty but has not overcome its many contradictions. An antique agrarian society – structurally unequal – suddenly turned into a corporate-friendly country where civil rights and minorities as well as environmental issues are often trampled upon. Rural and urban India, two worlds whose boundaries are increasing blurred, merging into a new, modern reality. What is the New India leaders are boasting about? A place where concrete and plastic rule, yet where things still get fixed rather than replaced; where nature is being destroyed in the name of development and religion is tube lights brightening up the darkness of the night. A surreal, loud and hallucinated dance of humanity throbbing with life. – Andrea De Franciscis
India is bright and colourful and that’s exactly how I decided to portray it, stressing on its strong tones. Besides making wide use of flash gel filters, on some of the images I also applied gold 24k and silver leaf, drawing from classic iconography and experimental assemblage that add a material layer on the picture. – Andrea De Franciscis
Andrea de Franciscis’s perspective on this often-photographed country is original and poetic. There is a documentary element, but Andrea augments it with a conceptual, aesthetic approach, intensifying the colours with, for example, the use of filters and the play of light, or by enhancing the shots with paint or gold leaf which made us think of traditional Indian miniature paintings. It’s a welcome departure from the stereotypical images of the country.
The presiding jury
