Turistica
Carlo Alberto Rusca is born in Turin on the 29th of June 1989. He’s currently based in Lugano and Düsseldorf, working as freelance photographer and filmmaker. Since 2015, he’s also teaching audiovisual sciences at CSIA in Lugano. His recent work ‘Turistica’ becomes a photo book edited by Witty Books and has been selected for several national and international exhibitions, among others, Vogue Italia Photovogue festival 2019 in Milan and Aperture Summer Open 2019: Delirious Cities, at Aperture Foundation, New York.
Turistica is a long-term project (2016-2019) realized in medium format analog photography shot in some neighborhoods of Locarno, my hometown, in the southern part of Switzerland. It’s a visual journey dedicated to all the small tourist destinations and their lonely citizens.
The season is over. The Autumn wind shakes the branches of the trees, solitary witnesses in a motionless space. In a house of someone who cannot sleep, a television lightens up the pale white painted rooms. Empty hotel neon lights reflect their luminescence on the windscreen of my car. Silence is filled with small, almost imperceptible, sounds: old bulbs flickering, radiators and ventilation systems sizzling in the dark. Everything looks the same, orderly and ready. Perfectly outlined. It’s hard to not feel alone. I get out of the car and I light up a cigarette while watching a big calf vanishes like a ghost in the haze that has risen in the meantime. His story is already written. He is stuck. Nothing can be changed. Here is the light of dawn. I think about the people I lost and who has lost himself in this place. Animals speak to me and palms look like fireworks. You couldn't feel bad.
« I’m used to work with viewer perception always in my mind. Despite that Turistica started as a really intimate and personal visual diary. I think it’s actually the most personal and complete work of my production for many reasons. For instance it’s the first long-term project which I can considered finish and that’s a big goal. During three years shooting I struggled a lot among self criticism, I didn’t give up with the project and I was persistent forcing myself to believe in the subject. I do hope that I found out the right balance in images, touching a sensible common ground with the audience. »
“ Somehow I think that poems are a use of language really close to photography: because of the abstraction, the symbolism and how the concepts are condensed. ”
In your creative process, do you think of a story first or do you have certain conceptual starting points in mind before you start shooting?
It all starts in a very abstract way. I usually try to write down some concepts and check references before I go out and shoot. I’m also used to put some limitations like choose a specific area or stay in a limited number of shots. Frankly when I go out in the real world I don’t think too much, it all comes more spontaneous indeed. I’m convinced that a sort of “before shooting routine” helps to be better focused on the subject and the value of what you’re framing, no matter what you’ll encounter during your journey.
“ A picture is always a lie. Be gentle. ”
CREDITS
Photographer | CARLO ALBERTO RUSCA