A resilient, human vision of warzones around the world

In Decem­ber 2016, pho­to­jour­nal­ist Gabriele Mical­izzi was in Sirte, a city on the north­ern coast of Libya that had become the cen­tre of a bat­tle between Islam­ic State (ISIS) insur­gents and US-backed gov­ern­ment forces. After months of fight­ing, the ISIS forces were even­tu­al­ly forced out of their last remain­ing strong­hold, and while the dust from relent­less shelling, fight­ing and siege was set­tling, Mical­izzi entered one of the most impor­tant build­ings in the city – the Oua­gadougou Con­ven­tion Centre.

“The Oua­gadougou [Cen­tre] was made by [for­mer Libyan leader Muam­mar] Gaddafi,” says Mical­izzi. ​“The plan was to be this kind of bridge between Africa and Europe, and because it was a very huge struc­ture it was used by ISIS as head­quar­ters to train [fight­ers] and hide from bombings.”

Inside, he found blown out win­dows and gun­shots through walls, but also a strange­ly beau­ti­ful orna­ment that remained large­ly intact. ​“When the Libyan army took back this place, there was this chan­de­lier that was so huge – five or six metres round, [hang­ing] from a mechan­i­cal rope,” he con­tin­ues. ​“And every­thing around it was destroyed, but not the chan­de­lier – it was a kind of resilience.”

Bright Dark­ness, a black-and-white pic­ture he took of that chan­de­lier, with the small fig­ure of a man stand­ing to its right giv­ing away its immense scale, is now fea­tured as part of Micalizzi’s new exhi­bi­tion A Kind of Beau­ty, which is on view at Milan’s 29 Arts in Progress Gallery from April 4 until June 28. Curat­ed by Tiziana Castel­luz­zo, it presents sev­er­al of the photographer’s most impor­tant and pow­er­ful shots from con­flict zones around the world from the past 15 years.

Hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly been a graf­fi­ti and tat­too artist before piv­ot­ing to pho­to­graph­ic reportage, Micalizzi’s pho­tographs show­case a dif­fer­ent side to war. Focus­ing on moments of resilience amid destruc­tion, fight­ing and ulti­mate­ly death, the pic­tures take view­ers away from the trag­ic, upset­ting images found in news­pa­pers, on tele­vi­sions and phone screens. Instead, blown up to fit on the walls of an art gallery, his work implores view­ers to slow down when look­ing at them, and search for the details that are often missed among sto­ries of con­flict and war.

“As an artist I am always look­ing for the beau­ty of things, even in this type of sit­u­a­tion,” he explains. ​“You have a very ter­ri­ble feel­ing that peo­ple are suf­fer­ing and there’s a lot of sor­row around you, but our eyes are trained for the beau­ty – from adver­tis­ing to the cin­e­ma every­where there are beau­ti­ful [images]. And in war­zones, when try­ing to tell the sto­ries of peo­ple who have been for­got­ten by soci­ety, I am look­ing for the beauty.”

Pic­tures are fea­tured from Egypt dur­ing the 2011 Arab Spring, anti-aus­ter­i­ty protests in Greece the same year, the 2018 March of Return in Gaza, the Don­bas region of Ukraine after the Russ­ian inva­sion in 2022 and beyond. From a man pulling a peace sign with his fin­gers while sur­round­ed by smoke and rub­ble in Cairo to a wed­ding dress on a man­nequin behind a win­dow shat­tered by gun­shots – the hor­ror, bru­tal­i­ty and brav­ery of war is on show in each shot.

“The only thing that’s the same is how civil­ians react to the wars,” Mical­izzi says. ​“Some­thing I learned from [see­ing] all the wars is that in [con­flict] sit­u­a­tions your per­son­al­i­ty comes out total­ly, so you are what you real­ly are – every mask falls down.”

And in those sit­u­a­tions, Mical­izzi found him­self on the receiv­ing end of the best of human­i­ty. He has sur­vived four raids, has over 100 stitch­es in his body, but when he need­ed help the most, peo­ple came through. ​“These peo­ple don’t have any­thing, they are suf­fer­ing, they often don’t know why. But they help each oth­er,” he con­tin­ues. ​“And it’s a beau­ti­ful thing – they have every­thing to lose, but many peo­ple helped me, gave me food, and saved my life.”

A Kind of Beau­ty by Gabriele Mical­izzi is on view at 29 Arts in Progress Gallery in Milan from April 4 until June 28

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