Tahiti Tattoos

From December 2nd to 31st, 2019, during the year dedicated to Matera, elected European Capital of Culture 2019, a collaboration was born between Cine Sud Catanzaro and the Gian Paolo Barbieri Foundation, making the final act of Coscienza Umana, the photographic exhibition created to convey an innovative point of view in photography—an invitation to observe thinking. Tahiti Tattoos is a story from and about Polynesia, and in particular about Tahiti: a land that led the author to enter into deep contact with the local population and to discover the roots of the tradition of ancestral tattooing. Through his still images, Gian Paolo Barbieri manages to emphasize the power of body language and the sculpted stories it carries.

Today, thirty years later, these images are presented to the public intact in both intention and execution, with an unchanged conscious expressive force.