According to Amnesty International, torture is practiced in 141 countries, both openly and in secret. Many of these countries have signed the UN convention against torture, but it still goes on.
In this series of still lifes, I have worked with the contraposition between the domesticity of the setup of each still lifes and the terrifying traces of violence that are taking place all over the world, be it for political or criminal reasons. I often use food in my work and in this case I use it as a universal point of reference, as a symbol of comfort and nurture that adds another level of conflict between the homely and the terror that grates on our conscience. What appears to be the subject of the still life is in reality only the first layer of the image; when the viewer looks further into it, she/he will see instruments used for different methods of torture. The shadows and the darkness are symbolic of the hidden violations of human rights that are taking place in the world every day.
Torture cannot be justified, but someone somewhere is being tortured while you are reading this.
About Ilva Beretta
Ilva Beretta is a Swedish photographer living in Italy. As a photographer, she gravitates towards food as subject matter, both as a fine arts photographer and in her professional work. She has a Ph.D. in English Renaissance poetry but has long abandoned the word for the visual image; her academic past evidently influences her visual research which is manifest in her interest in the perception of temporality and the mechanisms of memory which she often explores in her still lifes.
Ilva has been recognized internationally: shortlisted at the 2019 Athens Food Photo Festival, finalist in the 2019 SIPA Awards,Finalist in the 2019 IACP Awards Best Editorial/Personal Photograph, Silver in the Fine Art Still Life category in the 2018 Px3 Paris Photography Prize, finalist in the 2016 Sony World Photography Awards, finalist in the 2016 Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Years Award, winner in the 2014 International Association of Culinary Professionals in the Digital Media Award category among others. Exhibitions: 2019 group show Febal, Italy and at Pitti Immagine Taste, 2017 solo show at the Galleria Grefti and the group show Foodographia, Italy. In 2016 she participated in Sony World Photography exhibition and the Pink Lady Food Photography exhibition, both in London. 2013 participated in the EatArt exhibition at the Spazio San Giorgio gallery, Italy. [Official Website]
