In the Toronto of that time, there were no street benches, there was no piazza, and there were no bars with sidewalk patios until Italian restauranteurs introduced the idea. Still today, the urban planning programs of Canada’s largest city do not envision many public gathering places, which is another culturally cold front, besides the climatic one, that Italians have had to come to terms with. And Vincenzo Pietropaolo has a particular sensitivity for the genre of street photography, having been an urban planner for seventeen years. His most recent works tell the stories of piazzas and architecture of Italy and Europe, of the boulevards, and the public open spaces created for daily social encounters and community life. This contrasts starkly with the monolithic highways that snake beside new developments in Canadian suburbs, environments created exclusively for the movement of vehicles with no thought given to accommodating pedestrians. This is further reflective of the distance between the congregating nature of people of Italian origin and the proud sense of privacy held by people of Anglo-Saxon origin.



Even the Good Friday procession, in this context, assumes a quality that is not only religious in nature, but also one of sharing, conviviality, and the renewal of identity. Pietropaolo states:

“The idea of people praying in the streets had always fascinated me. Like most children born in Italy I had been exposed to a variety of religious processions, and other public rituals. They have a spiritual function that distinguishes them from the cultural theatrics and folkloric pageantry of “ordinary parades’. Taking part in a procession is a religious duty, and expression of faith, but of course there is no harm in going to such gatherings for another reason: to be seen by everyone else. On certain occasions, there are moments when the sacred and the secular seem to blur, giving rise to magical encounters among the participants. As an observer, I feel privileged when attempting to record them.”



And what of the elderly lady that is resting, seated on the corner of a sidewalk? (Community festival Grace and College, 1970.) In her native town, she at least would have had a chair to sit on, if not a street bench, or a café table in the piazza.

For the women in particular the effort was immense. Devoted to their husbands and to their children, to cooking, and to under paid work in factories, they did not have ownership of their aspirations except when they were for communal interest. Their voices were subjugated to those of their male counterparts whenever important decisions were made. Their isolation was doubly felt. They did not have the same freedom of movement that the men had outside the home, and social events like “English as a second language” classes were also occasions for rare moments of diversion and personal enjoyment. Through emigration, they also lost the ties to their mothers, brothers, sisters, and parental family, and often had to adapt to forced arrangements with their husband’s family. The immigrants lived in overcrowded houses, often with several families under one roof.

Pietropaolo’s book is a celebration of the sensitivity, dedication, beauty and intelligence of women. Ultimately, the feminine self triumphs over a history replete with adversities (Procession, feast of St. Anthony, Grace Street, 1971; Nanna with her grandchild, 1972). The women are hard working and proud (Bakery worker, Crupi Brothers bakery, Dundas Street, 1973; Seamstress, garment factory, Spadina Avenue, 1974). But they seem fragile and lost in this new nation of infinite and unbearable spaces. They are respectful of tradition (Bride, Bellevue Avenue, 1973) but also playfully dismissive and sensual.

These photographs arouse one’s curiosity; one would like to know more about a person, their situation, their name, and their town of origin. How was the photographer able to be there in that moment, without interfering with his presence or with his camera? The encounter between two sisters (Sisters meeting after twenty-five years, Toronto International Airport, 1971) both of whom had ended up in different and distant nations from where they were born, is an extraordinary example of the photographer’s talent (please see page 16.) Had the photograph been taken a moment later, once they had already touched, embraced each other, and poured out tears of emotion, it would not have captured the intensity of an encounter that had been anticipated for twenty-five years.

And it is not the only moment in which we marvel at the camera’s unobtrusive presence, which in someone else’s hands would have certainly been invasive. To Pietropaolo it is permitted to photograph children, such as in the photograph Children at CHIN, International Picnic, Centre Island, 1973, or a woman who is sewing, as in Sewing by the window, 1973, or the open note book while one is taking notes, in English lesson, West End YMCA, College Street, 1972, or capturing intimate moments in church, as in Child sleeping during midnight mass, 1972.