A photographer raised among Melbourne’s Italian migrants was entranced by the music he discovered in the city’s African community, writes Larry Schwartz.
WHEN he first encountered musicians from Melbourne’s African community at his inner-city studio, photographer Damian Vincenzi was so entranced he’d forget why they were there.
“It was all very new to me,” says Vincenzi, who has spent much of the past few years taking photographs of some of an estimated 17,500 Africans who have settled in Victoria in the past five years.
“I was just getting carried away with the music to the point where I’d almost forget to take a photograph because I was enjoying it that much.”
Vincenzi had not listened to much African music when first engaged two years ago by Multicultural Arts Victoria (MAV) to photograph the musicians.
“They would come in with all their wonderful colours and their drums and make a whole lot of noise,” he says. “Even though it was that noisy, everyone was rapt that they were there because they played such lovely music. No one would complain. I was hooked.”
He has since been a regular at community events. “Whenever they were performing, I would go along and shoot,” says Vincenzi, whose exhibition of photographs in the studio, concerts, community events and at home opens this week.
Among those photographed, Sudanese-born Eshak Awi, a songwriter regarded as a virtuoso of African guitar styles, says he suggested the exhibition’s title, Music is Family, because music is “the language we share”.
Musicians in the photographs have been part of the Visible arts mentorship program co-ordinated by MAV.
Organisers say it “captures the intimate connection between music, family and everyday life in African culture”.
Awi, who will perform at the opening on Tuesday evening, was among the first musicians photographed by Vincenzi at a studio in Smith Street, Collingwood. “He was very calm and quiet until he got going,” the photographer says. “That is the way it is with most of these performers. They live two lives. When they are offstage they are quite subdued; onstage the light comes on.”
Vincenzi, 32, is the second of three sons of Italian migrants. His hairdresser mother, Rose, was just four when her family came here from Calabria. His labourer father, Jianni (Joe), came alone from the Veneto region when he was 17. “They met at San Remo ballroom. My dad went up to my mum and said, ‘Do you want to dance?’ “
He grew up in Coburg, Templestowe and Donvale as the family moved to be close to his mother’s relatives. “Growing up it was mostly Italians,” he says. He knew children from various backgrounds but says it was “very rare that I would have an African friend until probably the last two years”.
An African musician invited him to lunch on Mother’s Day at a housing commission flat in Collingwood. “No one spoke much English. He showed me a video and he said something like, ‘This is where I’m from; this is what I’ve experienced.’ ” They sat silently watching Sometimes in April, a 2005 documentary on the Rwandan genocide.
“About half an hour into it, he just left without saying anything. He was gone for about half an hour or so and then he came back with a slab of beer. We started having a drink and his wife came and asked if I would take some photos of her in the kitchen.
“They accepted me the first day that I went there,” Vincenzi says.
He photographed drummers and dancers at Burundi Independence Day festivities this month at the Eolian Hall in Lygon Street, Carlton. They served rice and a doughnut-like delicacy. A reggae-style band called Blak Roots played.
“It’s intoxicating,” the photographer says of Melbourne’s African music. “It makes you feel alive. It’s happy and it’s full of life and energy.”
The Age 26-Jul-2010
Larry Schwartz Writer 