Angela Varricchio was born in the south of Italy in 1979. In 2003 she took a Full Honours Degree in Science of Communication at the University of Studies of Salerno, Italy. In 2004 she completed a Post-degree Specialisation in Project Media Content Management at Genesio in Milan and in 2005 a in Photojournalism at I.S.F.C.I. in Rome.
After having taken a Master’s Degree of Arts in Photojournalism at Mid Sweden University in 2017, she started a Doctorate in Media and Cultural Studies at Lancaster University, in 2018. Her research investigates the impact of intersection of gender and ethnicity on war photography aesthetics and ethics.
Since 2007 Angela has been working as a freelance photojournalist, multimedia journalist and conflict documentarist and teaching photography, documentary photography, and reportage. She won several national and international photography awards.
“My Way” is a personal and intimate exploration of El Camino, the Way of St. James, a Christian pilgrimage, really popular during the Middle Age to expiate sins, asking pardon or miraculous conversion. The journey is traditionally covered on foot, by bicycle or by horse, starting from the French village of Saint Jean Pied de Port and ending in Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. Before leaving, a pilgrim receives a credencial by a specific religious congregation. This document certifies the status of pilgrim, allowing him to stay overnight at convenient structures, called albergues. Only the pilgrim who covers the last one hundred kilometres towards Santiago receives the Compostela, which certifies that he has reached Santiago and visited the Cathedral in which Saint James’ s remains are treasured. The worship of St. James was born from a legend according to which the body of one of Christ’s apostle, James, disappeared uncannily, was found in Santiago de Compostela by a monk after a dream. During the dream, the monk was told that the body of Christ apostle was where actually the Cathedral dedicated to St. James is located, in a Campus Stellae, from which the current compound noun Santiago de Compostela derives. In the last decade, the number of people walking along the Way has increased dramatically. Catholics, atheists, agnostics or on the road travellers have shown more and more interest in the Way of St. James.
In a historical period in which materialism does not leave space to the spiritual dimension, this intimate photographic storytelling investigates my personal experience on El Camino as a spiritual search, necessary to survive to the speed and superficiality of the contemporary era.
I highly advocate the use of Fine Art to redirect society towards the defence of vulnerable and marginalised groups. I conceive Photography and Photojournalism as cultural tools to attract public opinion’s attention on features, out mainstream media circulation. The increasing power of lobbies at the vertex of media companies has caused the crisis of independent publishing companies, with a consequent slow and progressive narcotisation of audience and a decreasing engagement in defending civil and human rights. Fighting the overcomes of the crisis of photojournalism classic form, I am passionate about developing and endorsing contemporary forms of photojournalism multimedia journalism which adapt to new challenges, functioning as guardians of democracy. Photojournalists and multimedia journalists must be pungent and incisive actors of the media arena shaping alternative and resilient forms of politically engaged intelligencija contrasting new forms of inequality. I fiercely support and work towards the defence and preservation of indigenous cultures and their myths, fighting the ethical and political vacuum produced by capitalism, animal and human body commodification, the cultural stereotypisation and homogenisation, working for the flourishing of a gender, ethnical, political and religious diversity by digital activism.
