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Beach Vendors "Spring/Summer 2008" by Gianmaria Gava
‘Spring/Summer 2008’ is a series of portraits showing Senegalese beach vendors at the Tuscan coast. The title of this project is connected to the seasonal fashion, that year-by-year keeps us updated on the latest trend and what we should buy. Gianmaria Gava and Aldo Giannotti have researched on people working on the edge of today’s consumer society. Senegalese are, along with Romanians, Albanese, Moroccans or Chinese, among one of the major ethnic groups that migrates to Italy and live there without a legal status. The main reason for them leaving their country is the fishing crisis in Senegal, as a result of globalisation and industrialisation of the fishing resorts. Since most migrants are not protected by any social security system, neither from their home countries, nor from the Italian immigration policy, they are forced to become cheap and illegal labour. These street vendors are called "Vu' cumprà?” a malapropism of their pronunciation of the daily question "vuoi comprare?" (Would you like to buy?). Especially cheap copies of brand and luxury products, such as handbags, T-shirts, sunglasses or belts, are selling well on the beaches. Hunted by the police, loved by the fashion-conscious tourists. Gava reproduced a classical aesthetic of fashion photography, showing the vendors in the unusual position of models, that could derive directly from the cover page of a magazine. The models‘ faces are never visible, the person disappears in disguise: men and women in-between loud advertising, hiding their existence in illegality.
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