Scarti

Hardcover
64 pages
210 × 248 mm
2013
Published by Trolley Books

Ghetto, published by Trolley Books ten years earlier, documented twelve contemporary gated communities. Photographed by Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin entirely on large-format colour negative, the project took three years to complete and is now out of print.

Scarti di avviamento is an Italian printing term referring to the sheets used to clean ink drums between print runs — material typically discarded once production is complete. During the printing of Ghetto, however, these scarti (scraps) were preserved by publisher Gigi Giannuzzi. Following his death in December 2012, they were rediscovered.

These twice-printed sheets reveal unexpected and often striking visual combinations — the result of chance rather than intention. What might be considered waste becomes, instead, a field of accidental imagery.

The Scarti of the Scarti extend this process further. For this later work, images were printed over an Italian furniture catalogue, then cut and selected by the artists. The result suggests the possibility of an almost infinite repetition of accidental yet compelling visual forms.

Winner of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, 2013