Showcase: Tiziana Bel
Tiziana Bel (1984) is an Italian photographer from Puglia. She is fascinated by art since she was a child. Tiziana studied Cultural Heritage while specializing in self-taught photographic technique. In 2011 she got in contact with Museum of Photography at Polytechnic of Bari. There she attended laboratories and workshops and approached conceptual photography. After some years of experimentation, recently her photographic research focused on European cities’ urban space; among architecture, colors and details that suggest an idea of urbanity.
Her works have been published in Italian and foreign magazines.
Interviewed by Chiara Costantino
Hi Tiziana, how did you come to photography?
Since I was a child I’ve always loved art in all its forms, from painting to sculpture and i just needed to find my ideal means of expression: I found it 10 years ago when I received my first camera, I immediately understood that it would become my best friend for a long time, becoming soon an overwhelming passion.
Are there photographers and other artists who influenced you?
Photographically I’m influenced by the work of Robert Adams, William Eggleston, Thomas Struth, Joel Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore, Walker Evans and Italian photographers like Gabriele Basilico, Ghirri and Guido Guidi. Lately I’ve been fascinated by German director Wim Wenders’ photography and by his excellent description of desolate place or urban setting.
On your site you wrote that you have “the anxiety to understand the outside world through the sight”. Please explain how you do it through your photographs.
Photography is for me an exercise of observation and reflection of reality around me, so my photographs are influenced by my perception of reality, from my experience, from my thoughts.
Analog or digital?
Both, but for the most part of my work I use the digital camera, because it gives me more freedom of expression.
You visited many European cities and portrayed them. Which aspects have you focused on?
I am a great lover of urban landscape, my photographic research focuses on the metropolis, seen as a place of dialogue in which I’m in search of the relationship between identity and urban space. For example in my work “Berlin Explorer” I investigated the relationship between history and urban landscape and as the soul of the city and its people are influenced by its architecture.
What countries do you want to visit most and why?
Photography for me means travel, through the images to tell the surrounding reality, dwelling especially on large urban spaces. Photography allows to represent historical memory, everyday life and future. In the coming months I plan two trips; one to Budapest in Hungary, I am very happy, I want to walk along the river Danube and admire the beauty of the architecture of this city, I’m sure the atmosphere will inspire my photographic work, another trip will be in Istanbul in Turkey, a city full of charm and mystery which extends between the continents of Europe and Asia, divided by the charming Bosphorus Strait.
What are your goals for the future?
My goals for the future are experimenting with photography and make new work experiences, travelling to wonderful countries, learning about new cultures and new people and capturing everything with my camera.
Your “Light in the Night” project is about cities at night, when there’s almost no sign of any human presence. Tell us more.
Light in the Night is an open work born in 2013, I photographed at night some European cities such as Bucarest, Krakow, Warsaw, Paris, Praha, Tirana with no traffic, no people, closed shops, metro stations deserted, cities are in a silent solitude and reveal their most intimate side. Streets are animated only by blue Light of the night, neon lights and distant sound and everything is emptied from its daily function. Sometimes there is a human figure and seems to emerge from a dramatic estrangement and lack of communication with the surrounding space. Night experience in the city changes urban space’s perception.
What do you miss the most in your life?
I think I’m very lucky because I have everything I need!!! I live in a city by the sea in southern Italy, where in April is already summer, I am surrounded by my wonderful friends, I have a boyfriend who adores me and with whom I travel a lot and my passion is turning in my work. The only thing I miss is a life experience outside Italy, I would like to live for a while in Berlin or London but I’m working at this ;)
The question you expected me to ask is…
What are your influences beyond photography? Cinema and Literature are the main sources of my inspiration :)
(Images © Tiziana Bel)
Chiara Costantino (1984) lives in Bologna, Italy. She creates and curates content and social media for Fluster Magazine. She works as a web content editor, social media specialist, translator and web marketer. Chiara loves Sphynx cats, Murakami’s books, vegan cooking and of course photography, especially street and conceptual photography and every work that explores gender and identity. The Internet is her home and you can tweet her at @c84costantino
