Valeria Cherchi is an Italian artist
Episode 179: Valeria Cherchi is an Italian artist who works between Milan and Sardinia.
In this episode we speak about Valeria’s background in photography for a short time before delving deep into her complex and brilliant book Some of You Killed Luisa which was published by The Eriskay Connection. The book is dense and brilliant though it deals with an extremely heavy topic: kidnapping in Sardinia.
I had first seen Valeria’s work in Poland at a photography festival. The installation was incredibly arresting from the get-go. I was drawn immediately to her use of video images in the work and found the whole of the project deep, dark, and brilliant. I would also suggest her use of the book format to tell the story is a breath of fresh air as far as photobooks are concerned. It is a small compact book full of images and text which tell the story in a masterful way without feeling exploitative.
Please pick up this book. I feel in many ways that it is ahead of its time. It is dealing with photography in a way that does not undermine the journalistic pursuit of the medium while also paying attention to the images in an artistic format which begs bigger questions about memory, trauma, and storytelling. Please tune in!
