Where can the human being go? The answer lies in the photographs of Scott Typaldos and in the images of him in black and white that show the other face of humanity, the one who lives in chains and on the verge of survival in a dilapidated psychiatric institute.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
Where can the human being go? The answer lies in the photographs of Scott Typaldos and in his black and white images that show the other face of humanity, the one who lives in chains and on the verge of survival in a dilapidated psychiatric institution.
A work with a strong emotional and visual impact, contained in the title “Butterflies”, declined in four volumes (until now), which puts us in front of the sad reality in which the patients of some States are forced to live, where the asylums they still exist.
A sort of descent into hell, on the border with a reality where men, women and children live on the ground, bound or chained, often naked and in rooms decorated only with empty and dirty walls.
In these atrocious shots you can see the patients of the psychiatric hospitals of the West Africa, Kosovo, Bosnia and Indonesia and this very last chapter is on display in Rome in the spaces of the photographic workshops.
READ also: THE HORRIBLE SECRET OF KAVUMU, THE VILLAGE OF KIDNAPPED AND STUFFED CHILDREN
Without filters, the absent glances of these people encompass stories of psychic torture, their bodies of physical beatings, the environment shows the state of neglect in which they survive.
“The only thing I could be ready to say is that it is the group, the system and the society that create the disease. The type of mental illness a country develops is one distorted and encoded mirror of his own social and political dysfunctions ”, says the Swiss photographer who won the first edition of the 'Il Reportage Photojournalism Award'.
It took five long years to be able to document life in these asylums. Typaldos spent three months in each hospital, trying even before making his reportage, a contact with the sick, even managing to spend the night with them, when they become more violent and uncontrollable and are sedated with massive doses of antipsychotics with devastating side effects because they are obsolete.
A job that still is work in progress. “I want to continue traveling to check the situation of psychiatric patients on all continents and then make a book that tells the whole world”, says the photographer.
Abandoned by families, forgotten by society, patients are familiar with segregation, lack of care and total abandonment. The image of the farfalla, choice indicates the longing for freedom and the fragility of the soul besieged by the fear of these men and women reduced in chains by our societies.
Dominella Trunfio
Photo: Scott Typaldos
