Lisetta Carmi it was the world. A world of freedom, consistency, altruism, listening and observation skills. A bit of a pianist, a bit of a photographer, a bit of a mystic and a bit of an anthropologist, in her long life she has always worked “for the sake of the least” to “give a voice to those who don’t have it”. with a sensitivity that allowed her to touch the hearts of people, first with music, then with images, and finally with prayer. Existence multiplied by five and stretched like a long pentagram for 98 years, celebrated last February.
Annalisa, known as Lisetta, was born in Genoa on February 15, 1924, and belonged to a bourgeois family of Jewish origin.. At the age of 12, she began learning to play the piano, but in 1938, racial laws hit her hard because she was expelled from school. She still manages to attend classes and take exams at the Genoese Conservatory, but with the outbreak of World War II, her family is forced to move to Switzerland, where Lisette continues her studies at the Zurich Conservatory. After 1945 he returned to Italy, graduated in piano and began his career as a concert performer, which would accompany him until 1960, when he ceased to devote himself to another passion – photography. The decision to give up music is an act of rebellion when, wanting to take part in a protest strike called by the Genoese Chamber of Labor on June 30, 1960, his teacher Alfredo Oni opposes because he is terrified of a possible hand injury that it might prevent her from continuing to play: ” I remember very well how I answered him that if my hands were more important than the rest of mankind, I would stop playing the piano.
Having experienced discrimination under racial laws, Lisette cannot accept the ignorance of the downtrodden, the marginalized, the defenseless. With new Agfa Silette with nine rolls bought in Puglia while visiting the Jewish community of San Nicandro Garganico, he begins his new journey into the world. After giving up his career as a concert artist and receiving recognition for his photographs, he makes photography his profession and the medium “a tool for finding the truth.”
After working for several years as a stage photographer, in 1964 she was in Genoa to report on conditions Kamalli, a dialect term used for longshoremen. The photographs are distributed through a series of exhibitions. First, at the House of Culture in Genoa-Calata del Porto, organized by Filp-Cgil. His works are highly regarded and exhibited in other Italian and foreign cities as far as the Soviet Union. During these years, he began to collaborate with World, New Ways As well as l’espresso. In December 1965 he was in Paris reporting on the subway.but his most famous work will start next year later so to speak, the fatal meeting of Lisetta Carmi, thanks to her friend Mauro Gasperini, with the community of transvestites who occupied the former Jewish ghetto of Genoa even before there was a definition of LGBTQ.
Hence the real connection, which has been actively developed over the course of six years, in which a woman photographs the reality of this community.. These photographs, originally presented only in black and white, and then reprinted in color, as well as being completely unusual and perceived as scandalous by the general mood of the time, once again emphasize Lisette Carmi’s sense of closeness to figures marginalized by societyfound in most of his reports. The photographs, accompanied by the texts of interviews with psychiatrist Elvio Facinelli, will then be collected in a book. transvestites published in 1972 by Sergio Donnabella, who specifically founded the Essedi publishing house.
No one in Italy before her had thought to turn the lens on this community, separated from the rest of the population by a respectability and morality that does not allow even the works of Carmi to be distributed in bookstores.. The volume was initially rejected by the official sales channels due to its scandalous content, but has become increasingly successful over time. In these images, women are immortalized not with voyeuristic taste, but with sensitivity and grace, with a deep sense of respect that is inherent in those who do not recognize themselves in the body in which they were born and are looking for a new identity. . “It all started with a New Year’s Eve party that I was invited to,” she told al. Courier -, I discovered the suffering and loneliness of truly respected people. Since then, I have never sold photographs from that series, because I was afraid to destroy this friendship, do you think Morena made me call before she died.
With this community of people, Lisette feels a closeness that breaks down all barriers and allows her to gain their trust. “Thanks to the trans community, I learned to accept myself,” she says. – When I was little, I looked at my brothers Eugenio and Marcello, thinking that I want to be a boy like them. I knew that I would never get married, and I refused the role that was offered to women. Transvestites made me realize that we all have the right to decide who we are.”. Lipstick, mascara, lace, fishnet stockings. The sensuality of these images is obvious, but it never goes beyond the mark. The inspiration seems almost picturesque, those nineteenth-century Orientalists who painted women lying on soft sofas amidst thirst. and brocades, in rooms exuding pleasure and bustle, melancholy and delight.
After nearly twenty years of discovery, fighting and traveling between Israel, Palestine, South America and Afghanistan, just like she started, she quits photography and embraces religion.: “At 18, I did what you do at 50.” His meeting in India with yoga master Babaji Herakhan Baba proved fatal. Here, too, a turning point, Lisetta considers her work as a photographer complete and dedicates herself to creating a place of spirituality in Puglia, in Cisternino, where she bought a trullo and where she will live almost fifty years of her very long life. leaving the municipality several of his photographs and hundreds of books. “When someone is in a certain place, he must leave some evidence, this is important,” he explained. “In the beginning it was hard, people here did not have an openness to the divine,” then many from all over the world noticed this. “I want to be cremated, and then dispelled into the sea, there would be no grave for me, I want to leave my mark on people.” These are the last wishes of Lisette Corti, who gave the latter beauty, spirituality and voice.
Source: Elle