Over a period of two years, British photographer Alys Tomlinson followed and documented people in their traditional costumes and masks worn at religious festivals and celebrations on the islands of the Venetian Lagoon, Sicily and Sardinia. The artist focused in particular on Holy Week, i.e. the last week of Lent and Passiontide in the church year. In the book “Gli Isolani (The Islanders)” Tomlinson works with a large format 5×4 camera and draws on the imagery of her earlier projects, which give the black and white photographs a certain timelessness. In the early stages of the project, Alys says she researched the literature and poetry associated with the history and culture of the Italian islands, exploring tradition and identity, ancient myths, folklore and fairy tales. An exhibition at HackelBury Fine Art in London from September 7 to October 29, 2022 is also dedicated to this project.
“Between religious context and drunken celebrations”
As the Guardian reports, most of the portraits and landscapes were taken in the mountain towns and villages of Sardinia and Sicily, where participants often parade through the streets wearing animal skins and grotesque masks. Their costumes go back centuries to the fantastical creatures of local fairy tales and even further back to pre-Christian rituals.
“In the villages themselves, there’s no real consensus as to the origins of the festivals. But the different rituals and traditions are all very specific to the villages they’re held in. They draw hundreds of people into the streets, and there’s an obvious dichotomy between them the religious context and the often boisterous and drunken celebrations,” Tomlinson told the Guardian.
The people behind the masks are often very young men. Their everyday life is quite ordinary, but they transform when they don these elaborate costumes, usually handcrafted by their mothers or grandmothers and kept like treasures in almost sacred crypts.
(Alys Tomlinson in The Guardian)
Photographer with a flair for intimate moments
Alys Tomlinson was born in 1975 and grew up in the southern English holiday resort of Brighton. After a degree in English literature, she completed studies in photography and anthropology in London. Her main work (Ex-Voto) examined Christian pilgrimage sites in Lourdes (France), Ballyvourney (Ireland) and Grabarka (Poland). Her series Lost Summer (2020) documented London teenagers whose proms were canceled during the coronavirus pandemic. Tomlinson also works as a documentary filmmaker. One of her current projects is the Sundance Institute-sponsored documentary “Mother Vera,” about a pilgrim she photographed for Ex-Voto. Tomlinson lives and works in London.