N E W S L E T T E R

Luca Rotondo
Lares

The death of a beloved pet is a profound experience for any animal owner; it often leaves a tragic void in its wake. Particularly in times when more and more people live without partners or children, a pet – be it a cat or a dog, a parrot or a lizard – can be both friend and family member. Luca Rotondo travelled throughout Italy and encountered people who, for a variety of reasons, could not bear to be separated from their deceased pets. Therefore, they have had them embalmed, kept them at home in the form of skeletons or had them preserved in formaldehyde. The name of this photo project refers to the Roman lares, or household gods that protected the family. These statues embodied the souls of predeceased ancestors and were taken along whenever the family had to leave their home town. Like the lares, the preserved bodies of dead pets accompany their masters and mistresses through life: in the living room, the kitchen and even the office.

  • Animals
  • Bizarre
  • Collecting
  • Italy
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Photographer Luca Rotondo speaks about his project Lares.

Here are the interviews with 3 heroes from the project. (Here you can see the interviews with 2 heroes of this project and with the taxidermist, who was the contact person of Luca Rotondo).

 

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3 Questions
1. The door opener: Can you describe a formative moment in your career as a visual journalist?

I think i cannot speak of a single formative moment. Till now, I believe I have learned something every time I have made a personal or assigned project. But especially if we talk about editorial assignments, that is when we have little time available and we have to satisfy a specific request, we always have to face new complexities and find solutions. Every time it happens that something could have been done better or differently, but most of the time we realise it later, and it is at that point that we learn.

2. The decisive moment: When did you first encounter your topic and why did you decide to cover it photographically?

It is actually a very simple story; one year ago, one morning out of nowhere I asked myself: Is it possible to embalm a pet? Are there people who have this desire? Who do they refer to for this service? So I started calling all the embalmers I could find and went to meet some of them. I immediately understood that most of them usually refuse to embalm pets, but that there is actually a small demand on the market. I was immediately fascinated by the possibility of knowing the stories and motivations of the people who decided to preserve the body of their animal and so I started looking for them.

3. The future: What could the visual journalism of the future be like?

This is the big question of any time, difficult to answer, impossible to answer in 600 characters. There are certainly many ways to deal with photojournalism, which means many ways of telling a story. The first and main problem to be faced is deciding what you want to tell. Then you have to decide the way to do it, that means the choice of the right language. The real difference lies in how you decide to tell. I think that the classic visual imagery of photojournalism should gradually be put aside and that storytelling should be increasingly opened to approaches that are also artistic or in any case less conditioned by the language of a genre.

Curated by Anna Brauns und Anastasia Shvachko

© for all photos by the photographers
© for all videos Lumix Festival Hanover, if not indicated otherwise.

*1989 in Milan, Italy
After completing a programme in Economics, Luca Rotondo switched to Photography and studied at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) in Milan. His central topic is the visual exploration of landscapes and people, as well as their relationships, dialogue and interactions with the space surrounding them. Apart from his independent work and commissions, Rotondo has been teaching landscape documentation at the IED for several years.

www.lucarotondo.com
@loocaround

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