Encounters with Sicily

Like all journeys to the lands of one’s family and ancestors, Sicilian Journey conveys subtle, sometimes unconscious responses to the complex experience of return. Shorter in scope than Janine Coyne’s other substantial photo essays(on Ellis Island prior to its reopening as a museum and on battered women’s shelters in Brooklyn), it is also presumably one of her most personal.Despite its succinct character, Coyne ’s distinctive approach is revealed as she captures the recurring rhythms and routines of daily life.

Made during two intense trips in 1997 and 2001, Coyne’s immersion and response to the places and people she encountered was necessarily quick and fresh yet the resulting photographs demonstrate an effort to convey a timeless essence, both aesthetic and emotional, filtered through her psyche.

Sicily is a place that is familiar to Coyne through family memories and community references, as well as through depictions in popular films such as Roberto Rosellini’s Stromboli or Guiseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso, and even tourist images. Yet, for this very reason, it is also a place frequently unknown in reality —in fact,an idealized conception of Sicily, and indeed of the Mediterranean in general, haunts Coyne’s endeavor, as it does many historic and contemporary artistic efforts that have tried to interpret and understand evocative places such as Sicily.

Images of unfamiliar lands have been a staple of photography since its inception in the 19th century. The work of early photographers such as Timothy O’Sullivan in the American West, Francis Frith in Egypt and the Middle East, and John Thomson in China seemingly had several objectives: the gathering of scientifi c knowledge, cultural acquisition, even personal exploration.

In fact, these motivations can undoubtedly be linked to colonialist institutions that harnessed photography to further their goals. Such early photography was for a long time viewed as objective reportage.