by Martina Bacigalupo
I’m showing how big the sky is is a tribute by Martina Bacigalupo to her former nanny Chiou Taur Wu, a Taiwanese woman who lived for more than three decades in Italy.
Battered by life – from a childhood spent in the fields of the south of the country to working in a factory in Taipei, while still a teenager, to the gambling debts of her Italian husband who forced her to work day and night – Chiou Taur didn’t give up. Returning to Taiwan at almost seventy, finally free, she decided to do everything she was never allowed to do during her life: she enrolled in middle school, signed in for ballroom dance classes and begun taking holidays trips.
Through hundreds of photos received from Chiou during ten years of correspondence, the Italian photographer offers us the story of extraordinary resilience. Told in the first person, with images and words by Chiou, this work, published by L’Artiere, is a song of freedom, full of humor and poetry. The photographs, often simple and spontaneous, transform everyday gestures into a universal narrative about dignity, the desire for independence, and the possibility of reinventing oneself even in later life. Each image conveys a gaze full of energy and vitality.
Martina Bacigalupo
Martina Bacigalupo is a photographer, photo editor, and curator whose practice unfolds at the crossroads of image-making and cultural dialogue. Based in Burundi for over a decade, she has developed a body of work cantered on the visual dynamics between Africa and the West, exploring shifting perspectives, circulation of images and questions of representation.
Her work is held in major international collections. A member of Agence VU’ in Paris, Martina is deeply committed to mentorship and to fostering South–South dialogues within the photographic community. Alongside her artistic and curatorial practice, she regularly contributes to international juries. After many years shaping visual narratives as photo editor for “XXI” and “6 Mois”, she now works with “Le Monde”.
