“Kami is a mining village that takes its name from the mountains in the Bolivian Andes Cordillera...on which is precariously clinging at over 3.800 meters above see level, “says Ferdinando Scianna who went there 25 years before Daniele’s trip in 2009.
Scianna visited what he then called 'a miners' camp' three times, and stayed there for over two months, invited by friends of COOPI, an Italian NGO that, even then, supported the local communities where Father Serafino Chiesa, a Salesian missionary, was working. Scianna describes the existence of the inhabitants as a living death [..].” when they do not die from starvation, fatigue, silicosis or tuberculosis, there are the soldiers' rifles at the slightest sign of rebellion.”
Daniele visited Kami in the frame of Terna's collaboration with COOPI.
Terna is a company that manages the Italian electricity network and is completing a project of restoring and strengthening the electricity network of the villages scattered near Kami through some generous and competent volunteers. Significant activities have been carried out in the meantime, thanks above all to the tireless and far-sighted initiative of Father Serafino. He was assisted by Father Michelangelo, who guided Daniele in documenting the work and dedication of the inhabitants and volunteers of Terna...
... Roberto Cotroneo emphasizes how Kami remains one of the poorest places in Bolivia. The mine always requires terrible efforts to get tungsten out of the bowels of the mountain, using obsolete techniques, since technical improvements have never been carried out. Daniele tells the reader about his experience in a few words and many images: 'Portraying people I found the faces described by Scianna and listened to heartbreaking stories. When I photographed three pylons having as a background the barren mountain in which some workers were hanging up at work, the image overlapped with the one of Golgotha [...] Despite this harsh reality, I perceived in the people's eyes a great dignity and signs of hope for a real improvement in living conditions. I tried to convey this positivity.”
2024
Excerpts from DANIELE TAMAGNI STYLE IS LIFE, BOOK
testimonials
Kami has ended up becoming, unexpectedly, a key place in my life. I don't love the mountains and the mines give me anguish. Yet I immediately understood that in that place I had found a human and visual mirror in which I recognized my-self. Someone said that the book I made there is perhaps my most Sicilian. Maybe it's true. A metaphor of the world, of life, of misery, of fatigue. I never wanted to go back. Then Daniele went. Even if in essence he went there for professional reasons, his fascination is clearly perceived in his photos.
FERDINANDO SCIANNA
Milan, 2023
