H. Said He Loved Us,
Tommaso Tanini
Truths, Facts, Fiction, Lies
South Studios
27/28 New Row South,
Dublin 8
Opening: 6pm Sat 5 July
Dates: 3-13 Jul
EXTENDED to Sun 20th July
Opening hours: Mon-Sun 12-6pm
H. Said He Loved Us,
Tommaso Tanini
H. Said He Loved Us is a project that draws upon the story of GDR and the German Ministry for State Security (STASI) to investigate the feelings of fear and oppression caused by living under constant suspicion and diffidence. The result of 3 years of work, H. Said He Loved Us combines and overlays archival and documentary research (including collected documents and interviews with people jailed by the STASI) with a personal and subjective photographic investigation inspired by the book “L’uomo è forte” written by the Italian writer Corrado Alvaro in 1938: a novel that, in a non-specified historical and geographical frame, follows the indoctrination of a man who, returning to his homeland to offer his service to a new regime, sees the penetration of terror and the impossibility of evading the surveillance which destroys all privacy and all will. The sense of unease that pervades Alvaro’s book creates a sort of background for the documentary material collected during the investigation.