To teach the rest of us what it is like, Mirella – the namesake – and Luigi, Podavini’s muses, welcome us kindly and warmly into their most intimate moments, where Podavini captures some of their most private interactions and displays them publicly.
The representative photo depicted here is the second of twenty-five. At first glance, we see a familiar scene, a restroom, but then we quickly realize we are voyeurs of a steamy, post-shower embrace. Notably, the moment is set in the restroom, one of the most private places, a place of reflection, nakedness and rejuvenation. That Luigi and Mirella share the space together speaks to their deep bond and to Luigi’s increasing precarity. Blank space dominates the photo as well. Ordinary objects speak to the routines of daily ablutions, and to the humdrum of Alzheimer care.
It is tempting to observe that a woman and a man are the subjects of the scene. But if we continue scanning, we realize that it is actually just their entwined and mirrored likenesses that draw our attention, their mutual, reflected appearances which captivate us. On the left, the larger of the two images beckons our probing gaze first: we see the two figures enmeshed, in a way, but in a particular kind of way. The woman is clearly assisting the man. He is, as we soon realize, very much dependent on him, framing her gestures as all the more endearing.
Fixing this moment are ostensible furnishings of vanity – the mirrors – but here they instead stand witness to something paradoxically inspiring: a profound and selfless act of care. Mirella, the woman doesn’t even feign a glance into the mirror to admire herself (as we see in the second and smaller of the mirrors); instead, she focuses on Luigi, aiding him in his attempts to wash. But the mirrors serve another purpose as well, beyond her revealing kindness: they provoke us to question “who are we and what do we become when we have Alzheimer’s or other conditions of dementia?” And: “Do we become mere reflections of ourselves, and how do our relationships to those around us change when in the wake of the developing, enveloping [so-called] ‘disorder’?”
It’s hard to say whether Podavini answered these questions, but he nevertheless labored enough to try. To capture the ordinary, chilling, sad, and happy moments of Luigi and Mirella’s final six years together, Podavini lived closely with the couple for nearly four, following a series of stints with a number of other NGOs and different organizations to extend a shrinking tradition of Social Reportage photography.
But this series is more than artistic and personal accomplishment: it calls attention to the increasing cost and challenge society faces in caretaking for loved ones with Alzheimer’s, and provokes critical questions about its persistence. Moreover, Podavini’s work is additionally groundbreaking for how he de-medicalizes the life of the Alzheimer’s patient and the language used to describe it: he inspires us to see ourselves there with Luigi and Mirella, to think of ourselves as part of a human community with which we must brave these troubled waters, as much as with love and kindness as with any medicine or policy recommendation.
Hopefully, as Podavini may have intended, his series has the partial effect of generalizing these queries and habits to the point that we all become more involved in a national – even international – conversation on the matter, in addition to becoming more interested in the lives of those around us and how we might work together to engender human kindness on a global scale.
My original blog post submission to the Art Writing Comp by Find Your Art School, a great resource for finding top advertising photography schools near you!
Bearer of Pity 