What Happens After Tragedy? Alberto Gandolfo on Photographing Those Who Inherit the Fight for Justice
Welcome to this edition of [book spotlight]. Today, we uncover the layers of 'What Remains,' by Alberto Gandolfo. We'd love to read your comments below about these insights and ideas behind the artist's work.
What remains after tragedy? Alberto Gandolfo answered with a camera.
His long-term project focuses on the people who stay behind, those who lost someone and are now fighting for justice. We often hear about public tragedies in Italy, but we rarely hear what happens after or who carries the burden. This work shifts attention away from victims and turns it toward the families, the friends, the survivors. It shows a different side of grief, one that continues for years, often in silence.
Alberto spent years meeting people who were never part of the news, but whose lives were changed by it. With black and white instant film, he photographed those who carry memory, anger, and responsibility every day. He didn’t use lights, assistants, or filters. Just time, conversation, and trust. These portraits are not about what happened. They are about what still hasn’t ended.
This isn’t about headlines. It’s about what happens when they disappear.
The Book
What Remains is a long-term photographic project by Alberto Gandolfo, begun in 2017, that focuses on the people left behind after public tragedies in Italy. Instead of documenting the events or the victims, Gandolfo turns his attention to family members, friends, and survivors who carry on personal and collective battles for justice. Using black and white instant film, he creates intimate portraits of those whose lives were changed by political violence, mafia killings, state failures, and unresolved disasters. The work challenges the limits of memory, media, and mourning, offering a quiet but powerful record of civic resistance and enduring grief (Amazon)
Overview of the project: What inspired you to shift the focus from victims of public tragedies to the people who remain, those left behind to carry on personal and collective battles for justice?
There are two main reasons.
One concerns the way of telling stories that have characterised the chronicle of the last 40 years in Italy. The media focus on images of what happened and people who are no longer there, tragically disappeared in events like those recounted in this book. The intention was to tell the evolution of issues often left unresolved, going to find those hidden truths, due to a slow and not always fair justice.
Another reason is that telling the developments of events in the past means to confront with the present, with people who remain and usually are those who carry out very long battles to obtain justice. We know the faces of the victims, but we do not know the people and lives of those who remain. Through the portraits of those who remain, you also photograph a heavy absence, certainly even those who are no longer there, but somehow you try to give dignity to an endless pain.
Motivation and research: What was the process like when you began reaching out to families involved in these events, and how did their responses shape the direction of the project?
The first family I contacted was that of Peppino Impastato, on the occasion of some photographs taken at Casa Memoria. Casa Memoria Felicia e Peppino Impastato in Cinisi in Sicily is the House-Museum dedicated to the memory of Peppino Impastato and his mother Felicia. Peppino, an activist who fought against the mafia, corruption and oppression for social justice, was killed by the boss Gaetano Badalamenti. Mother Felicia broke the wall of silence to tell the story of Peppino and to denounce the murderers, mafiosi son; she was the first woman who joined, after marriage, a mafia family, following the tragic loss of her son, who rebelled against the culture of omertà.
As soon as I talked to them about my project, they immediately agreed to participate, and it was they who gave me some contacts for later stories.
In this work, the challenge was to make them understand how interested I was in getting in touch with the stories of people who remain, photographing them in an intimate way, without any kind of additional tool beyond my instant analogue camera.
Giovanni and Luisa are Peppino Impastato’s brother and niece, respectively. Peppino Impastato’s is a tale of rebellion against the Mafia – of which his father was a member – and its code of silence.
Banished from home due to conflict with his father, he initiated an open fight against illegal Mafia-style activities, becoming a point of reference for his civil commitment to the pursuit of legality and the principles of justice.
In 1967, he started “Radio Aut”, a self-financed, free information broadcasting station which he used to expose the Mafia dealings in Cinisi and Terrasini. In his popular radio show “Onda Pazza” (“Crazy Wave”), he mocked capomafia Gaetano Badalamenti on a daily basis. In 1997, the latter would be charged with instigating the murder of Peppino, whose mangled body was found on the night of 8–9 May, 1978, on the Trapani-Palermo railway lines – thus simulating suicide.
His mother Felicia and Giovanni’s perseverance led to the identification, in 1984, of the Mafia’s responsibility in the murder. And although the case was dismissed in 1992 (the year of the double assassination of Falcone and Borsellino), in 1994 the Sicilian Centre of Documentation in Palermo “Giuseppe Impastato” presented a request, accompanied by a popular petition, for the investigation to be reopened, calling for Salvatore Palazzolo – a former member of the Cinisi Mafia clan turned state witness – to be interrogated.
On 11th April 2002, Gaetano Badalamenti was declared guilty of Peppino Impastato’s murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Peppino Impastato’s life is recalled in Marco Tullio Giordana’s film I cento passi (“The Hundred Steps”), which won several awards.
Visual language and technique: Why did you choose to use black and white photography and instant film for this series, and how did those choices contribute to the emotional atmosphere of the portraits?
They were fundamental. I wanted a photograph that was as unfiltered as possible, almost without reasoning, instinctive. The photographs I have taken come from long days spent talking to these people, who have welcomed me into their homes and lives, telling me what is not usually told to a journalist or photographer. They let me into an intimate space, and I wanted to bring back that atmosphere in photos without any pause, which were the result of a real encounter. The black and white respected a dimension of mourning and pain still very present, of a living memory. Instant photography allowed me to share with the subjects immediately. No photograph has been retouched.
Role of photography in public memory: What do you see as the responsibility of photography in preserving historical memory, especially in cases where justice has yet to be served or acknowledged?
Photography is the tool that allows not only to remember but to activate memory. My project was realised years after the tragedies I tell. The choice to change subject and dwell on those who remain was a change of perspective that photography allowed me to realise, making some events current and still full of emotion.
Emotional thread between stories: The stories in What Remains range from Mafia killings to political massacres to infrastructure disasters. What common emotional thread did you find across these seemingly different kinds of grief and resilience?
What these stories have in common is the desire not to forget. Continuing to fight not only for those who are gone, but for the people who remain, for the community is a way of keeping alive those who have disappeared. And it is perhaps a reason for life for those who stay, a mission that in some way gives the motivation to get up every morning. Anger, the lack of understanding for what cannot be justified, becomes the sense to carry out a battle of civilisation.
Carolina is the daughter of Antonella, the wife of David, whose lifeless body was found in an alley beneath the window of his office at the headquarters of the Banca MPS – Monte dei Paschi di Siena, where he was head of communications. At the time, MPS was at the centre of an ongoing investigation following the Banca Antonveneta acquisition. The investigators ascertained that it was suicide by falling (with the fall filmed by the bank’s surveillance cameras).
Despite the expert opinions presented by David’s family highlighting elements in contrast with the hypothesis of an insane gesture (such as the incompatibility of his injuries with the fall), his death was dismissed twice as a suicide.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Genoa opened a file investigating the actions of the Tuscan magistrates, as well as a threatening letter accompanied by a bullet sent to the Sienese public prosecutor Aldo Natalini (involved, among other cases, with the MPS events). Inquiries are still underway.
Five years later, Carolina Orlandi published Se tu potessi vedermi ora (“If only you could see me now”), a book in which she attempts to reconstruct the outlines of a suspicious death: she describes the days leading up to the event, highlighting the anomalies of slow and superficial investigations, while also offering a portrait of David Rossi the man (beyond his public role and the relationship built over time with the young woman who was his wife’s daughter). The book is further evidence of the battle fought by the bank manager’s relatives, who refuse to give up and continue to call for light to be shed on a story featuring several contradictions and too many inconsistencies.
Ethics and positioning of the photographer: Do you see this work as purely documentary, or did it also require you to take on the role of witness or advocate? How did you navigate the ethical complexities of representing others’ pain?
Initially, my intention was to denounce and shout to the world what I had discovered through the study of the procedural events in these stories. I wanted to give voice and a face to those who had never had it, I wanted to restore dignity to all that hidden pain. It took me some time to start photographing. I divided the research into two parts: one dedicated to the reconstruction of events, which Benedetta – curator and editor of the work – has dealt with, and one dedicated to the human knowledge of people. With all these people involved in my portraits, an informal relationship was born. I was very much helped by all the protagonists. Each suggested another case to follow, other people to involve, and I was often helped to get in touch with other stories. I didn’t want to photograph pain, but pain is an integral part of these people. It is in their eyes, in their souls, and it was impossible that it did not shine.
Advice for photographers exploring social themes: What advice would you offer to photographers who want to explore social or political topics while maintaining deep empathy for their subjects and resisting sensationalism?
I don’t know if I can give any useful advice. I think it’s an attitude and approach that one has. Personally, I was never interested in the sensational part of the story. We see thousands of images a day that tell with immediacy situations of pain and conflict and are perfectly aware of the extreme difficulties that photojournalists live today.
When I want to explore social or political topics, I divide the areas. On the one hand, there is the chronicle, the documents, what has been witnessed to date. On the other hand, there are human beings, with different feelings and emotions, with individual experiences, that go beyond the fact itself. It is essential to study and try to get an idea of the social and political situation in which a fact happened, but after this, I am interested in people and establish with them a relationship. All my photographs talk about human relationships. This is my focus.
Paola is the Italian lawyer whose work led to an epoch-making change in the Italian regulations regarding the way of transfusions.
The lengthy legal battle that saw her at the forefront took off starting from the several cases of patients who had been infected with pathogens such as the HIV virus and hepatitis B and C after undergoing cyclic transfusions of infected blood for therapeutic purposes.
With the issuing of two laws in 2007, the Italian Government began an amicable settlement for compensation, but a decree issued in 2012 by the Ministry of Health effectively excluded the majority of the plaintiffs entitled to compensation from the settlement.
The Associazione Giovanile Talassemici (Association of Young Thalassemia Sufferers) of Lecce, represented by lawyer Paola Perrone, appealed to the ECHR – European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg), which described the suit brought by the Salento citizens as a “pilot suit”, gathering the many other suits undertaken all over Italy. The goal was to obtain the reimbursement envisaged by Italian law and the compensation for damages due to the lack of inspections on the part of the Government regarding blood for therapeutic use (later proven to be infected).
In January 2016, the Strasbourg Court recognised the patients’ right to the compensation envisaged by Italian law and sentenced Italy to pay for the damages sustained by patients who were infected with HIV, hepatitis B or hepatitis C through blood transfusions during medical treatments.
Thanks to Paola’s commitment both at a human and a professional level, the legal process had the extraordinary result of clearing a path for the protection of public health which, departing from Lecce, has since extended to the entire country.
Impact on contemporary Italian history: By showing the faces of those who didn’t “make” history but were shaped by it, how do you hope this work contributes to our understanding of recent Italian history and civic memory?
Discovering that behind those anonymous faces lie the stories of those who have succeeded in changing a law, a procedure, which has helped to improve the society in which we live, arouses a desire to understand our more recent history and to want to keep it even more alive, escaping from that mainly human, to forget.
Anonymous faces have incredible power. They are the faces of each one of us. Each of us has a father, mother, brother, sister, friend. To be anonymous people, unknown in the world, but with a common pain, like the loss of a loved one, means to represent all that part of the world you do not know and therefore identify with it.
Marisa is the mother of Marcella, whose lifeless body was found in a wood near Brindisi. She had been stoned to death.
The mother of a little girl, Marcella decided to distance herself from the world of drug addiction and of the Brindisi and Salento criminality she had been a part of, but she wasn’t given the time to denounce it. The instigators and physical executors of her brutal murder, ordered by the Mafia-type criminal organisation “Sacra Corona Unita” – as would later surface from the tales of certain informers – have never yet been tried or convicted.
Marcella kept a diary where she wrote down everything that happened to her, telling stories of drugs and organised crime. That diary is still preserved by Marisa who, despite never bringing a civil action, found the strength (also thanks to Don Luigi Ciotti’s association Libera) to cherish her daughter’s memory via the many meetings she holds in schools all over Italy. The dignity of a mother intent on remembering her daughter’s bravery has kept the case from falling into oblivion, though it was dismissed by the legal system.
Among the more touching moments attesting to the symbolic recognition of Marisa, we find Denise Cosco requesting her to collect the Ambrogino d’Oro awarded to her by the City of Milan on her behalf (Denise Cosco became a witness for the state following the death of her mother, Lea Garofalo, at the hands of an ‘Ndrangheta organisation led by her husband).
In March 2018, the comune of Siziano, in the province of Pavia, decided to dedicate a street to Marcella Di Levrano.
Her name is mentioned every year on the day commemorating the innocent victims of the Mafia.
Public response and reflection: Since the publication of the book in 2019, what responses have stood out to you from the people portrayed or the public? And how has What Remains influenced your approach to future projects?
The book has had a long preparation. There were many comparisons not only with the people photographed, but also with Benedetta and Efrem Raimondi (1958-2021), a photographer and very dear friend. I have always been urged to reflect, to deal with these events with extreme sensitivity. I remember that during the shooting, I took part in the portfolio readings at Fotografia Europea, the festival of Reggio Emilia. With Benedetta, we wanted to understand if the meaning of this work came. I won the First Prize with this project, and I was happy because I understood that the project had been understood.
When it became a book, we decided that each presentation would be accompanied by an installation. We wanted everyone to get as close as possible to the photographs, because it was an invitation to enter into the stories.
We started in Milan, passing through Lecce and then ending in Palermo. Each presentation welcomed some of the protagonists of my portraits who participated in person, with great emotion. The emotion was each time unique, and the public attention towards these unknown heroes has paid off the effort of years of work.
At a distance of time, it is still a job that intrigues. What remains was exhibited at the last edition of the Photolux Festival - Biennale di Fotografia in Lucca, last November 2024. And despite the fact that five years have passed since its publication, the work has received the same deep attention and interest.
What remains has perhaps been a working method for me. Go beyond the fact that you want to tell, trying to represent it through the most authentic witnesses, often anonymous.
To discover more about this intriguing body of work and how you can acquire your own copy, you can find and purchase the book here. (Amazon)
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