Ernesto Tomasini: “Home”

22 ottobre 2013 di Patty Owens

We met Ernesto Tomasini in Palermo, again. He paid a rare visit to his home town to receive a special prize. We asked him to tell us about his Home.

“A performer’s attachment to their Home(s) is generally deemed to be particular but my case is even more peculiar.

I was in my early teens when I left Home for the first of a few times. When I went away for good I had been living abroad so often that – I realize in retrospect – I had lost any sense of belonging. Once I moved to Britain I became a full on gypsy, touring across the breath of the country. Even when I was on the West End I was moving from one partner’s Home to another. Today I am all over the shop like never before: cities, hotels, apartments, theatres. When I wake up in the morning, I often have to focus, for a few seconds, to try and remember where I am. The only time in which I had an actual Home – as a child – I couldn’t really call it mine: I grew up in a council block, in a flat so small that I didn’t have a room for myself; the tiny living room was my constantly crowded abode.

So what can I call Home? Is it my own house in which I spend very little time? Is it the airport lounge, or the plane, in which I seem to be forever stranded? The dressing room, which I love? The apartment selected by the production company in Mexico? The hotel suite in Spain? Or a friend’s flat in Berlin? Is it my new parents’ Home in which I didn’t grow up and which I don’t get to visit as much as I would like?

This collection of images, by Italian photographer Francesco Paolo Catalano, in a subtly symbolic way, does capture this constant change, this inner feeling of absence, the thrill of new adventures invariably around the corner!

Please note: The furs that appear in one image are vintage (1930s!). Buy vintage or fake fur and leave the animals alone (you stupid bitches)!”

Ernesto Tomasini

HOME
Storytelling

Photography
Francesco Paolo Catalano

Starring
Ernesto Tomasini
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