Luca Rotondo | Lumix Festival für jungen Bildjournalismus

Luca Rotondo
Lares

An interior view of Carlo’s private office in Rome, where Achille's mounted body is kept.

Carlo poses with Achille in his vintage-jewellery boutique in the centre of Rome.

Achille was the office dog at Carlo’s boutique. Achille died on a late winter evening just before Christmas. That night, Carlo decided to have Achille embalmed. “I’m not an emotional person”, he says, “but I had a special relationship with Achille.” Achille should be looking up: “He used to look for answers in my eyes.”

Carlo and Achille lived together for eight years: from 2009 until 2017.

Luciano’s floral perch between the kitchen and the living room.

Laura and Giacomo in the kitchen with their little parrot, Luciano.

Laura, Giacomo and Luciano lived together for nine years: from 2008 until 2017.

Laura and Giacomo have no children – but they had Luciano, a little parrot. “At home, he was free. He was the one who woke Giacomo up in the morning”, says Laura. “He was an intelligent, sensitive animal. When we felt sick, he was always close.” One evening, Luciano died of a chronic respiratory problem before their eyes. A few days later, the couple had him embalmed. “The band Europe performed in concert that night”, they remember. “We sang ‘The Final Countdown’.”

The bookcase where Laura keeps a few bones, including Peppo’s.

Laura at home in Castelveccana with her dogs Giulio and Luna, Gas the cat and Peppo’s skull and caudal vertebrae.

Laura and Peppo lived together for five years: from 2011 until 2016.

Laura’s interest in animal anatomy began with the purchase of a rack of deer antlers from a small market. Later, she added a wolf’s skull, a cat foetus in formaldehyde and, after castration, the testicles of her dog Giulio. Since then, Laura has tried various methods of preserving small animals. When her dog Peppo came down with leukaemia, she wanted to keep his skull and tail. She could have carried out the procedure herself, she says, “but with my own dog, I couldn't have brought myself to do it”.

The head of Alberto’s cat is kept in the living room.

Alberto with the things that most interest him: his cat Dinho, football, comics and the helmet of King Leonidas I.

Dinho’s head on a marble base. Alberto and Dinho lived together for five years: from 2013 until 2018.

Dinho was a cat who thought he was a dog and knew how to open doors. One evening, when Alberto came home, Dinho wasn’t there. Three days later he found out that Dinho had been cut in two by a train. Alberto’s father suggested having Dinho embalmed. The taxidermist could have skilfully put the body back together, but Alberto decided to keep only Dinho’s head: “with his proud chin pointing upwards and his eyes looking into the distance – like the busts of emperors and kings”.

Dob is kept on a shelf in Lanfranco’s father’s studio at Lurano Castle.

Lanfranco with his family at Lurano Castle. His wife Federica holds Mina, a Jack Russell terrier; his grandmother Anna holds her dog Liù; his two daughters Roberta and Giulia with their dogs Penni and Viva, and Roberta’s husband Andrea, with Ottie, a small dog.

Dob, the Uromastyx lizard. Lanfranco and Dob lived together for one year: from 1975 until 1976.

Lanfranco found Dob, a lizard from the Uromastyx genus, in 1975 while he was on a study trip to the Sahara. He brought her to Rome hidden in a box. Lanfranco conversed every day with this animal, which he defines as “prehistoric”, let her run free at home and developed a symbiotic relationship with her. A year later, Lanfranco had to take a trip and entrusted a friend with Dob. The lizard died three days before Lanfranco’s return. He had Dob’s body preserved in formaldehyde: “I gave Dob the freedom to move and float like a spaceship.”

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

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).

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

*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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