Sal Mancini
To photograph is to remember and I with a photograph remember… I want to remember it all, and photography has made this possible.
– Sal Mancini
Sal, a long time fixture in Providence was one of the first photographers featured in the NetWorks project. His feature and video interview were published in the inaugural issue of the Networks project, Networks 2008 which featured nineteen Rhode Island based Artists across a broad spectrum of media and interests.
Salvatore Mancini: in his own words…
Looking back throughout my 40 years of photographing what do I see through that clear singular reflective lens of time? From my first photograph in 1967, a self-portrait with dark glasses and a beret, to my most recent photograph, a self-portrait in a rat temple in Bikaner, India, the one word that jumps out at me is remembrance. Every photograph I’ve taken is an act of remembrance. I want to remember my passage on this earth (sentimental as that may seem). I want to remember the journey of my life, who I was, where I’ve been, what I thought, what I felt, what I dreamed and what inspired me. I want to remember all of my relationships, family, lovers, and friends, what questions I’ve had and which got answered or didn’t.
I don’t want to forget what the experience of living has been all about. There is my passage from childhood to adulthood, from primordial urges to evolving into a fully sexual and intellectual being. I want to remember all the experiences that formed my identity, from my birthright to my travels. I want to remember the age-old questions that we all ask – who are we? where did we come from? and, where are we going? I want to have a photograph to represent those questions and their conclusions. I want to remember every sight and insight along this human journey.
I’ve been given the freedom to explore and make visible many of the yearnings that make life fulfilling, and even painful. I want photographs of all of that. Every photograph I’ve taken is an attempt to not forget my own existence. The act of photographing keeps me a few steps back from a void, slows down the fleetness of time, and puts a frame around my memories. To photograph is to remember. I want to remember moments through the exactness of a shutter speed.
Source: NetWorks 2008 Catalogue
A video Interview with NetWorks Photographer Sal Mancini
A selection of Photographs from the Industrial Revolution…
To photograph is to remember and I with a photograph remember…
The moment when naked I pretended to fly off the Grand Canyon.
When I first saw the cypress trees of Point Lobos or the full moon rising over a boulder in Utah, inscribed with a procession of galloping horses.
Beholding the human fragility and strength in the faces of the mentally ill and retarded.
Seeing the body of a recently murdered young woman, a victim of gang violence.
Viewing a devotional procession to the Madonna della Civita, the patron saint of Itri, Italy.
Walking through the stone doorway of an Incan city in the jungles of Peru.
Seeing people being blessed by temple elephants in India.
A jellyfish being transformed into a jewel by sunlight.
Discovering industrial archeology in the forgotten rivers of Rhode Island.
A diver suspended in the sky over Narragansett Bay.
What my parents looked like before they died.
I want to remember it all, and photography has made this possible.
– Sal Mancini
You can find more of Sal’s work on his website at http://www.salmanciniphoto.com/ or
in the Smithsonian American Art Museum https://americanart.si.edu/artist/salvatore-mancini-6073
Sal Mancini is represented by GalleryZ in Providence https://www.galleryzprov.com/
Networks Rhode Island June 17, 2008
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