He made the fight against cultural homogenisation the common thread of his critical thinking throughout his long career. For Goffredo Fofi publishing ‘was a way of doing politics, for someone who does not know how to do it.‘
I initially came to know him during my university years. A caricature version of his face would appear every week inside Internazionale (an Italian magazine composed of a selection of international press articles) and where he used to write a column reviewing movies.
At the time I did not know about the influence he held beyond these columns, but his name and work kept emerging during my studies, while my admiration for the broadness of his interests, for his intellectual rigor and for his political views kept growing.
Goffredo Fofi holds therefore a particular place in my heart as well as in my path. Not only for his life and work, and the resulting inspiration he projected on people like me, but also for the peculiar sensibility and empathy he manifested towards minorities, and particularly towards the South Tyorlean population.
He was a close friend of Alexander Langer, who has been an important reference of mine since my high school years. He dedicated his whole life to fostering peaceful coexistence between cultures and to safeguarding the environment we inhabit. His message has inspired much of my work related to communities and minorities.
Fofi wrote a beautiful forward to the most comprehenvie collection of Alexander Langer’s writings, titled ‘Il viaggiatore leggero (The Lightweight Traveller)’, helping disseminate his message and ethics. The last work Fofi published a month ago before passing away was again a book on Langer, Ciò che era giusto. Eredità e memoria di Alexander Langer.
Another reason why Fofi holds a special place in my heart, is because of the gratitude I feel towards him and his support for my work. Soon after my book ‘Hidden Islam’ got published, Goffredo Fofi wrote a review about it. It appeared on a Sunday in the mid of Summer 2014. I was unaware of it and discovered it at the news-stand. The book had already received considerable attention from the foreign press, but curiously enough, none in the very same country the book was talking about. Fofi was the first one to spot and review it in the national press. This testifies much for his broad interest in cultural matters, as well as for the fresh look he had on things and his ability to cross-cross the art world without a hierarchical view, and with little esteem for cultural elites. The review helped the book gain traction in Italy, and further cemented the debate around the theme.
After the review Goffredo Fofi invited me and my brother one evening for dinner. He lived in Rome in a small flat, covered in books and DVD’s. We ate his exquisite vegetarian dishes in the living room, while I was grilling him with questions.
I remember vividly how he pressured on ‘fare rete’, networking, in a sense of forming a sincere bond in order to bolster change. At the end of the evening he gave me a small book, Anarchism: A very short introduction, by Colin Ward, for which he wrote a forward ending with the following quote:
‘Anyone who truly thinks and cares about the common good can no longer avoid, today, in some way, considering themselves an anarchist.’
Goffredo Fofi
(April 15th, 1937 – July, 11th 2025)
Here I translate his review of Hidden Islam into English. The original version was published on the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 ORE on August 17th 2014 and can be retrieved here.
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Islam as seen by Degiorgis
by Goffredo Fofi
This year’s Arles Festival—the leading photography event in Europe—has crowned 29-year-old Nicolò Degiorgis from Bolzano, a graduate in Chinese from Ca’ Foscari and a scholar of immigration issues at the University of Trieste, as the author and publisher of this year’s “best author’s book.”
It’s an important award, this time given to a self-produced book, and a well-deserved one—for the precision and beauty of the edition (the book can be requested via www.rorhof.com; Rorhof is the name of the photography publishing house, which Degiorgis hopes to expand into other areas as well, together with Eleonora Matteazzi in his hometown), as well as for the originality and strength of the idea behind it, the subject matter, and the way it is explored.
The title of the book is Hidden Islam, and the subtitle is Islamic makeshift places of worship in North East Italy, 2009–2013. It is essentially a survey, an investigation into the improvised, temporary, and sometimes semi-permanent prayer spaces that Muslim immigrants in Northeast Italy have created—often in semi-clandestine conditions due to hostility from the surrounding environment.
The Venetian paradox lies in the massive presence of immigrants (mostly Muslims), whose labor the local economy depends on, and the often racist way that society has chosen to receive them.
As Martin Parr—one of the most original and formidable photographers of our time—recalls in the preface he wrote for the book, Italy is home to nearly one and a half million Arabs and has allowed the construction of only eight mosques throughout the entire peninsula. “Even though in Italy the right to freedom of religion, without discrimination, is protected by the Constitution,” and even though “Islam is the second most widespread religion,” it is not officially recognized by the state.
Parr continues: “One fascinating aspect of photography is that it can speak of places and ideas we would otherwise have no knowledge of.” Yes, there remains a cognitive aspect of photography (and of journalism and documentary cinema, when they avoid the obvious) that should never be taken for granted. Even though in recent years the explosion and invasion of communication—the manipulated and manipulative kind, the fake communication—has made its role uncertain and often relegated it to simply confirming what is already known or to the misadventures of art, that doesn’t mean it cannot still be used—like investigative journalism or documentary and semi-documentary cinema—to explore the unknown, the dark corners of society, and all those things we refuse to see, even though we ought to.
This is an active book, then—one after which we can no longer claim ignorance, and which invites us to take the matter into our own hands, according to our conscience.
Degiorgis explored his Northeast, from Trento to Trieste—the westernmost and easternmost cities—and from Badia Polesine to Merano—the southernmost and northernmost. He divided his photos into exteriors (black and white, a frame on a white page) and interiors (in color and spread across two pages, enclosed within folded pages that show the exteriors), according to the kinds of places that the faithful have repurposed into places of worship.
These include warehouses, storage rooms, shops, supermarket corners, apartments, stadiums, gyms, garages, and nightclubs… Sometimes the interiors are really outdoor spaces inside other interiors, so to speak—small, secluded areas between buildings, passageways, courtyards, and grassy patches between a wall, a fence, and a hedge, brought to life by multicolored rugs. They show a few or many individuals—mostly men—bowing in prayer toward Mecca, barefoot, seen from behind, from above, with their faces hidden; men who are once again feeling and becoming part of a community, of a collective.
The dominant aridity of the exteriors—mostly soulless buildings, though occasionally spaces belonging to sympathetic associations or non-profits, in supportive communities that are not shown here—is starkly contrasted with the color and warmth of the interiors, always presented without emotional manipulation, with maximum objectivity and respectful distance. Degiorgis’s book is not one of denunciation, but one of acknowledgment: of discrimination, of injustice; something more than just a “problem,” as our politicians would prefer to label it.
This beautiful and important book is not the only one, from within the Northeast, that brings to light the ambiguities of a region blessed with wealth and now forced to reckon with painful truths. Many writers and directors are working there with clarity and determination—I think, among the more recent examples, of Alessandro Rossetto’s film Piccola patria and Francesco Maino’s novel Cartongesso, though many more names and titles could be listed.
Nicolò Degiorgis’s photos tackle the Northeast from the side of the “new Venetians,” necessary and undeniably different, who must be afforded the same responsibilities but also the same rights as everyone else, without distinction of faith. Long live Rorhof Editions.
Goffredo Fofi, Il Sole 24 ORE, 17.08.2014
https://st.ilsole24ore.com/art/cultura/2014-08-17/l-islam-visto-degiorgis-081454.shtml