May arrives and, as every year in Potenza, everyone eagerly awaits the start of celebrations for the patron saint, San Gerardo. The emotions and contradictions revolving around this event are manifold, deep, and often contrasting with one another.
Some thrill at the thought of participating in the traditional and majestic Parade of the Turks (Sfilata dei Turchi), others hope to do good business, some feel relieved by the imminent start of the beautiful Lucanian season, and others feel finally free as the school year ends. Yet there are also those angered by the noise invasion, those scandalized by the high alcohol intake flowing through the historical center's streets, and those who dismiss everything as a useless waste of time and public money. The patronal festival is precisely this: a faithful mirror of a community sharing the same spaces, moods, and time for a few days.
The Parallel Feast of the Wandering Community
Parallel to this theater of lights, sounds, and fairgrounds, there is another feast, hidden in the background of dark alleys and side streets. It is the feast of another community, taking place on the exact same days and in the exact same space as ours, but at a completely different rhythm. It is the silent and uncelebrated feast of street vendors, mostly migrants from distant countries who arrive in Potenza to sell their products.
These two "feasts" are actually inseparable from one another; the vendor fair is an integral part of popular imagination, yet between the two communities there is often no real osmosis. People brush past each other, buy an object, but invisible barriers remain raised.
I decided to point my camera directly toward this second feast—the one we often pretend not to see—approaching with respect to document the emotions, tired gazes, and daily dignity of this wandering community.
Street Reportage Style
For this photo reportage, consisting of 31 black-and-white and contrast-heavy saturated color shots, I chose to use harsh natural light, focusing on details: gnarled hands setting up merchandise, makeshift cots set up behind stalls, stolen moments of rest amid crowd chaos, and smiles of those waiting for the long day to end.
This photographic work dialogues closely with my video documentary Until "Lu Sant" Passes, centered precisely on anticipation and the social meaning that the feast of San Gerardo holds in Potenza's collective memory.
Roberto Lacava
