Salento 1907–1959
curated by Big Sur
in collaboration with the Castromediano Museum – Polo Bibliomuseale in Lecce and the Palumbo Family Archive
A photographic installation showcasing the Giuseppe Palumbo archive, an extraordinary visual legacy comprising over 1,700 photographic plates, inviting visitors to immerse themselves in urban, suburban and coastal landscapes, and to meet the people who lived in Salento between 1907 and 1959. Giuseppe Palumbo was a committed and curious observer, a true intellectual concerned with preserving a changing world, rather than merely a technical photographer. Farmers, craftsmen, storytellers, weavers, young shepherds with their flocks – the photographer, who travelled around Salento by bicycle, always maintained contact with the local people. Palumbo documented the places, the people, the traditions and the prehistoric monuments in order to highlight the neglect and destruction taking place to make way for new roads and buildings. It is a story that repeats itself, making the themes and reflections that the installation seeks to provoke highly topical through a fresh perspective on an ‘open’ archive – one intended, in accordance with the photographer’s own wishes, for public enjoyment.
Giuseppe Palumbo
Giuseppe Palumbo was born in Calimera (Lecce) in 1889 into a well-to-do family of landowners. A journalist and keen scholar of the local area, he covered a vast range of subjects, from culture to folk traditions, and from archaeological to architectural heritage, contributing to both local and national magazines. His earliest photographs date back to 1907: this marked the beginning of a long career as a keen observer of Salento’s folk culture, driven by a curiosity to discover and document moments of work and social life, as well as the region’s historical and architectural heritage and its natural beauty. He died on 26 September 1959 in Lecce.
