The Forgotten Diary of Su

“The vase is worth for what it can hold.” (Chinese Proverb)

 

 Dublin. Ireland, 5 March 2012

In 2012 I found, forgotten near an ATM at Termini Station, a little blue camera; I walked around the places to see if someone was looking for it, and I also looked at some photos inside to see who was the owner and maybe I recognize her, but nothing.

So I took it with me. It wasn't that I needed it, at the time I already had my camera and that was only a small compact digital model.

I remember that at the time I also posted on Facebook some photos of the Chinese girl who appeared in all the shots, in case – coincidentally – someone would have recognized her to give back the camera or at least the photos.

Nothing even that.

All I could do was to transfer all the photos into a folder and keep them there.

 

Now, after eight years, I decided to reopen that folder and to look at them again: 600 photographs, from the first taken on 31 July 2011 until the last taken on 7 March 2012, almost a year of lost life.

I often have the habit and pleasure, when I go to vintage markets, to take a look and often buy some old black and white photographs, almost always of unknown people. I like it, perhaps because since I was a child I have always interested in trying to understand the lives of others, enter their heads, like when you spend hours staring from your window at the dozens windows of the front buildings, and see who cooks, dusting, quarrels, kisses, watches TV, plays with children, and tries to understand what life is in those houses, what shake the hearts of those who live in them.

The same happens for black and white photos of unknown people: you look at them and wonder who she was, what was her name, what taste of ice cream she preferred or if she loved summer or winter, hair tied or loose, the piano or guitar.

There are also many photographic projects made with scraps of photographs or with old photos of unknown people.

But this is not my intention, nor did I find the golden box with all the preserved photographs of Vivian Maier.

That was only a small digital camera of a Chinese girl who, most likely, made a study trip to Europe. They were not images found in a market, but 600 photographs.. That’s a huge difference.

Not that she was an impeccable photographer. They were all very simple photos and many were snapshots and self-photos, but perhaps this is the peculiarity which led me to review them again and choose some for you.

 

These photos are the world seen simply by a perfect stranger, whom I will call Su, in honor of the protagonist of one of my favorite films: “In the mood for love” by Wong Kar-Wai, Su li-Zhen, Ya Xing in the book from which the film is based.

In fact, it really seems like watching a film, with the first photograph being a selfie of the mother, I guess given the similarity, at home, before accompanying her to the airport. I am almost certain she’s Chinese because both at home and in the airport there are the typical Chinese red rhombus ceiling decorations.

Then she begins her long journey, maybe alone or with her best friend who appears in many images.

In Dublin, where she attends university courses and sleeps at the home of an Irish family who hosts her. She goes to rock concerts and green valleys with other students. Then in Amsterdam in 2012, and finally in Rome, with the latest shots right near the station area where she will lose her camera. Occasionally the date also appears on the image as was usual in those old compact cameras.

 

What is most striking about Su is that she rarely smiles: in every self-shots or photos taken of her, she always has the same expression, which is a mixture of sadness and melancholy. Even when photographing alone in the hotel room, in the mirror: she never smiles.

In fact, her friend sometimes forces her to smile with fingers pressed to her lips.

But she loves flowers, she photographs them everywhere.

 

I tried as much as possible not to touch up the photos, not to cut them; sometimes yes, I edited them, as if I had taken them.

And I left them here in chronological order.

 

I don't know how to explain what I feel looking at these images, one after another. Maybe, only those like me who share the passion in knowing the lives of others can fully understand.

It's as if every person we meet on the street, in the workplace or at the market is a closed door. Well, in this case the door opened and I was able to enter for a short time, the space of a year and 600 images, into the mind of this melancholy young Chinese girl, who always spreads her arms, like a cross, when someone photograph her.

 

When we look at photographs of Salgado, McCurry, or Robert Frank, we are observing an artistic concept expressed in visual form, in which decades of experience, talent and thought condensed in an image.

When we observe, however, the thousands of photos posted on social networks, by our friends or acquaintances, we look at moments of daily life, certainly not masterpieces of photography, but what we are and what we live every day.

But..., but we are always looking at the result of a choice: it is what has been chosen to be shown to tell about oneself.

 

Su's photographs are a completely different thing, they are her private vision of the world. She never would have imagined that she would part with her camera in Rome and lost all those images.

She had taken them for herself, to remember her trip to Europe.

It is one thing to read one's own poetry in front of a vast auditorium, it is quite another to write one's thoughts, desires and fears in a diary in the solitude of the room.

These photos that I have chosen purely by instinct and emotion are much closer to a private diary, which unfortunately has been lost.

A diary that Su will no longer be able to browse, and maybe even now, years later, sometimes, she comes back to think about it in her room in a city in China, and suffers, because she really wanted to show to her mother how beautiful they were the blue flowers in Dublin, or swans in the canals of Amsterdam, or that unforgettable pizza in Rome.

 

For this reason I show you the photos of Su who never smiles.

So that, at least us, we can read her thoughts and know her emotions.

Hoping that this will make her smiles.

And who knows, maybe someone who sees these photos will tell Su and I will be able to give back all her memories. But this is only a romantic fantasy.

 

Ciao Su.

 

Good-bye China. 31 July 2011

 

Ireland, 2011-2012

Amsterdam, March 2012

My best friend. Amsterdam, March 2012

Rome. Italy, 7 March 2012

The last photo in Rome. Italy, 7 March 2012

Liu Yichang: “Duidao – Un incontro” (Einaudi, 2005)

 

Italian version