Comment vivre 100 ans
Province d’Ogliastra, île de la Sardaigne, Italie
Giacobba Lepori, 104 ans
Villagrande, province d’Ogliastra, île de la Sardaigne, Italie
Je m’habille toujours entièrement de noir et je porte un voile noir sur la tête parce que mon mari est mort et que la tradition veut qu’une veuve se vête ainsi. Je ne sais pas ce qui va m’arriver à la fin de ma vie. Personne ne sait, mais je n’ai pas peur de la mort.
Natale Lotto, 88 ans
Villagrande, province d’Ogliastra, île de la Sardaigne, Italie
Comme berger, j’ai toujours été très pauvre et j’ai eu la vie dure. J’ai passé ma vie à marcher dehors, beau temps, mauvais temps, de jour comme de nuit. Comme la plupart des bergers de la Sardaigne, j’ai commencé à travailler très jeune et je n’ai pas eu beaucoup d’éducation, c’est pourquoi il m’est difficile de m’exprimer avec aisance quand les journalistes viennent m’interroger. De plus, je me trouve laid sur les photos, je parais vieux.
Cela dit, je suis plutôt satisfait de ma vie. Chaque matin, je m’occupe de nourrir le bétail; ça me plaît de travailler un peu pour rester occupé. Tant qu’on le peut, il faut continuer à travailler. Aujourd’hui par exemple, j’ai été jardiner. Je cultive de tout : patates, fèves, zucchinis, tomates, tout. Mon jardin nourrit six différents foyers au sein de ma parenté.
Arianne Clément Photography
of the elderly
The Art of Aging
A photo story on the themes of beauty and sensuality after 70
This project owes its existence to a revelation I experienced when I encountered Marie-Berthe, a young 102-year-old beauty whose ease and casualness in front of the lens was as impressive as it was inspiring. I was immediately taken with the old woman and the way she totally - almost unconsciously - felt beautiful and attractive and was not afraid to show it off. What if beauty could not be reduced to an idealized aesthetic? What if, beyond the traces left by the passage of time on our features, beauty could be something less tangible but more lasting?
This vision is far removed from learned ideas and clichés commonly associated with beauty. It doesn’t have to be something that we are born with or without and neither does it have to be the privilege of youth. Beauty has to be much more and, hopefully much better, than this. It is a way of being. Something to cultivate, teach and learn from, and something that each of the nine women, and four men, that reveal themselves in this project are marvelous examples of. As models, they have been a great inspiration to me and it is my hope that my portraits will transmit their spirit and maybe also a precious lesson on the venerable art of aging.
The elders whose intimacy is revealed and celebrated here share with me a notion of beauty and sensuality that inspires a state of grace. Lightness and depth are here side by side in a provocative but thoroughly pleasurable display. Like dozens of other potential subjects, the models featured here answered my invitation issued on social media over the last few years. They were willing to contribute in their own way to redefine the way we view beauty, sensuality and old age.
Borrowing from the conventions of Nude and Boudoir photography, the pictures show my fascination with the human body and its great potential for emotional expression. It is therefore of great importance to me to establish a strong bond with my models, with the goal of laying them bare both physically and psychologically. The subjects, captured in their uniqueness, diversity and vulnerability, are sublimated by the use of black-and-white which enhances their presence and adds a poetic dimension to each portrait.
These pictures also aim to illustrate my irritation with the very conformist way we view beauty and with the pervasive presence of certain imagery that subdue many people into body shaming and a fear of getting old. Camera in hand, I hope to offer different images here – pictures that celebrate a diversity of bodies as well as a different way of feeling beautiful and sensuous.
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Lisa, 70 years old
I see myself as a sensuous woman, sensitive to nature’s various perfumes. I like to feel the earth under my feet, I like to hug trees and talk to them, I like to bathe naked in a river, I like the odors of the morning, I like to taste different dishes, I like to feel my body when I run and when I walk, I like the beauty of a flowered window, a colored door.
I like to hear the churches’ bells, I like to listen to music, I like the champagne’s bubbles, I like to caress and be caressed, I like to explore with my hands, I like to cut vegetables and make soups, I like to feel the sun’s warmth and the rain’s tickle on my skin, I like hugs, all the hugs, I like to dance, I like the movement of bodies.
I like to feel my man’s body warmth, I like when our skin touches, I like when he makes me laugh, I like when he comes close to me as he gets in bed, I like when he massages my feet.
This photographic experiment gave me the opportunity to accept myself and to exhibit my splendor and my vulnerability. What a magnificent journey!
