During the summer of 1941 these white limestone hills saw the massacre of between 4000 to 10000 people, the exact number is uncertain. It’s Slana concentration camp, on Pag island, Croatia.
The prisoners corpses were piled high in mass graves or thrown into the sea after they had been executed or had died by exhaustion. This document from lieutenant Santo Stazzi, who took charge of the disinfection of the camp when it closed down in September 1941 tells a story of brutality, fear and annihilation (from Day 3 on: www.jadovno.com/translation-of-original-italian-documents.html). I’ve spent a lot of time walking on this peninsula: sharp stones, heat, the glare of white reflection, thirst, silence, peace. Time stands still when I’m there, the place radiates serenity and what happened only a few decades ago is inconceivable. But its presence is around; still, at night you breathe quietly and stare into the void. This is what they saw.
The desert and its light volumes, make the ‘LS series 2012-2015’ series a complex metaphysical scenario. A journey that connects the exterior with the interior, the physical space with the unconscious of the individual. As being a spectator of a “disorienting” space; the same feeling that according to Heidegger was the basis of “his” being. Just as a function of that “disorienting anguish”, in fact, the individual ceases to refer to himself as a part of the everyday talk and to be included in the common way of thinking. And without a reference the man feels as a helpless prey of the same Space and Time that appear without borders in the photographs of Luca Tombolini». Francesca Orsi, Urbanautica
About Luca Tombolini
Luca Tombolini was born 1979 in Milan. He completed classical studies and then a degree in Sciences of Communication, with a major on visual rhetoric in Cinema. While studying he met with photography and started experimenting with a large format cameras. Since 2011 he’s drum scanning and printing on large scale prints; landscapes and real life scenes.[Official Website]
