Gomma Photography Grant 2021
Bagnanti
Photographer
Daniele Vita
Bagnanti
28 Jan, 2022
Catania is a city with a high percentage of people affected by poverty , who live in the "Quatteri". 
Life starts early, schooling rates are very low, children are forced to grow up quickly and they very often engage with illegal activities to support their mothers and younger siblings because the father was arrested. The family is the first social core, with very clear rules and roles to be respected in regard to the choices of one's life, in an indissoluble bond of devotion and respect. 
This type of "respect" coincides with a mafia culture that is still very widespread today. The first steps of these lives that alternate between prison and freedom, begin with criminal activities as children. 
In the summer, many kids from the most deprived neighborhoods of Catania go to the cliffs which become places for diving and aggregation. I followed a group of 10 children aged 11 to 15
Many of these kids already have a troubled past or are experiencing their present in a way that doesn't reflect their young age at all. 
I portrayed them among the rocks, I saw in them their childhood, their carelessness, the dreams of adolescence. I simply portrayed these boys.
About the photographer
Daniele Vita
Daniele Vita was born in Italy, on 1975. He has been studying anthropology since 1995 and started photographing as an autodidact. 2003-06 he documented theater in Italian prisons, for two years he was finalist at the Hystrio Occhi di Scena prize. 2005 he documented the daily life of migrants for Roma City Council, this work was exhibited at the Sala Santa Rita in Rome. In 2007 the exhibition the Uffizi in Firenze for the Fratelli Alinari. 2008 he won the prize at the Toscana Foto Festival with his work Morale della Favola . In 2009 he was finalist in the Kiwanis prize, Italy Portfolio and exhibited at the Cifa a Bibbiena, he won the South East prize and exhibited at the Fotografia-Festival Internazionale di Roma . 2011 he exhibited at the Mia, Milan Image Art Fair and was a finalist in the Unicef ​​Poy Prize with Cojimies, work that awarded him the G. Tedde scholarship the following year. 2012 he was also invited to the collective exhibition Sguardi di un paese in crisi at Citerna Fotografia . 2014 he won the Castelnuovo Fotografia award with Borders # 0, a landscape project on the island of Lampedusa. 2015 he exhibited in Rome Rovine, la forza delle rovine a Palazzo Altemps , alongside masters of international photography. 2017 he took part in the collective exhibition Feeling Home at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan.
2018 he was invited to the Med Photo Fest, exhibiting the work Suleymaniye Otopark. 2019 he won the Crediamo ai tuoi occhi award with the work la Settimana Santa in Sicilia and published the book with Fiaf. He won the 1801 passaggi - Mavi award and received an honorable mention at Unicef ​​Poy 2019. in 2021 he received the first WRA prize at the Lodi photo ethics festival, in the Future Generations category
