Malacarne – Kids come first is my first photobook: a three year photographic journey made by the author deep in the bowels of Palermo. The book, published in crowdfunding by Crowdbooks and edited by Benedetta Donato, contains a selection of more than 70 photos in which the main protagonists are children. As the subtitle says, children come before everything else, even in those realities at the margins of society, where there are “no written†laws that people learn to respect as real rules, in order to survive. Ballarò, Monreale, Albergheria, Zen, Brancaccio are just some of the author’s journey stops. Francesco Faraci has discovered some very difficult neighborhoods that are microcosms separated from the rest of the city, where the children he photographed are characterized by a particular identity, strong and specific. The right-thinking people call them the “Malacarneâ€, which literally means “Bad meatâ€, an expression of the local dialect that refers to people who can’t be trusted and that comes in a variety of negative meanings related to the inhabitants of certain specific areas of the city. The photographer decided to use the expression “Malacarne†in a provocative way in order to break the cliché and show the other side of the coin: be children despite the difficult situation in which they live. The photos published in this book captures all the strength, vitality and energy of these children. The dual-language book (Italian and English) features a critical article by Benedetta Donato and a story written by me that accompanies the viewing of images.
