With the project “The Ameriguns” he won the World Press Photo in 2021. And now, after the release of the book that proposes the 45 photos, he plans to shoot a “sort of documentary”
When in 2018 he was in Kansas for the National Geographic certainly Gabriele Galimberti, born in 1977, originally from the province of Arezzo, did not imagine that three years later that project born by chance would become so current. «In reality – he tells a The print – I was there a report on the fossil trade between individuals. Then one day, while I was driving a little outside Kansas CityI saw a shop with a huge writing on it, it said “Guns” and I thought that after all I had never entered, despite my twenty years of experience in the US. So I stopped, entered and discovered a world: a shop not for simple pistols, but a well-stocked arsenal: semiautomatic, Ak47, bazooka, machine guns … Everything ». And looking here and there he starts talking to a customer who was paying. “Naively I ask him if that was the first weapon he was buying and he bursts out laughing in my face: “I have sixty at home”, tells me. Instinctively I ask him if I can go to his house to photograph him and he says yes ».
That will be the first photo of the photographic project “The Ameriguns”45 shots of 45 different subjects from 35 American states taken between 2018 and 2020: in 2021 Galimberti wins with “The Ameriguns” the World Press Photo and from there it is a succession of prizes. The last, in chronological order, is the Ponchielli Award. And a few days ago “The Ameriguns” came out as a book, also in Italy.
In July Galimberti will exhibit his work at theCortona On The Move, a photographic festival to be held in Cortona. After the first photo, Galimberti ran into a second girl «who had 70 different types of weapons at home. Then there was the third and there I understood that this could be material for a large reportage, because these people were not rare in America but marked a trend, we can say “. In recent days, many have remembered Galimberti’s photographic reportage, after the recent Uvalde massacrein which 19 children and two teachers died at the hands of a armed boy.
A shot from “The Ameriguns” by Gabriele Galimberti
«To make the photos I met many Americans, of all kinds, many families also », says Galimberti, who in fact also immortalized children in the midst of rifles and pistols of all kinds. As in the case of the Texan family: «They had two children, an 11-year-old male who had even made a semi-automatic by himself and in complete autonomy, with the approval of his parents, was going to shoot. Her five-year-old sister was also adept at handling guns but unlike her brother she did not have permission to go and shoot: however her parents took her to the shooting range to practice. She was five years old ».
Of all the Americans met and photographed in his home, the Tuscan photographer told the story and faithfully reported the words: «I have never judged them even if I have an idea of my own. I can say that my photographs are – and I am aware of diminishing them by saying so – of infographics because they represent numbers. I focused only on Americans who have a lot of guns, so a sample of 45 people who actually represents about 30-40 million Americans. They represent a phenomenon and on the other hand the numbers speak for themselves: in America there are 400 million weapons registered for 90 million people who hold them. And we know the 48 percent of the world’s private weapons are in the Stateseven though they represent only 4 per cent of the world population ”.
But to the question “what if you do with these weapons?” Galimberti has always had confused answers for the simple reason that, he clarifies, “the Americans don’t understand her: it’s normal for them to have weapons. Indeed more, it’s a nice thing“. So much so that learning to shoot is «a ritual, something you learn as a child: parents are proud to teach their children, around the age of 7-8, to shoot. Let’s not forget that after all, even at the Olympics, medals are given to those who know how to shoot with weapons … Well, for them it is also a game“. Even Galimberti, who had never touched a gun before three years ago, has made a few attempts, even if today he would never buy one.
On the topic of massacres, then, the photographer has asked his subjects several times, with whom he has remained in contact (and who are not always enthusiastic about ending up on social networks called “crazy” by users who do not know the history of the photographic project): “Di these episodes, of the massacres, I spoke to 100 percent of the people photographed and all, without exception, point the finger at the fact that in the US there are mental problems that are not intercepted. For them, it is the man who kills and not the weapon. And the numbers must also be considered: in 2018 there were about 39,500 deaths from firearms, an average of 120 per day. Of the more than 39 thousand, 71 died in a mass shooting, so they are a very small number if you look at the total. The fact is that about 120 people die from firearms every day and this is an accepted phenomenon, which demonstrates how much the spread of weapons is rooted in America’s DNA ”.
What about future projects? “There is a possibility that I’m exploring with an American producer to make ‘The Ameriguns’ one sort of documentarya video transposition of the portraits and video interviews, so it is likely that he will return to the States soon ».
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