LEROS (west zone) by Alex Majoli

180,00

Condition: LIKE NEW BOOKS
Publisher: West Publishing Zone
Edition: FIRST EDITION, RARE BOOKS

Softcover 1st (an attached text book)
West Publishing Zone (1999)
96 pages
68 duotone b/w photos
paperback 15,0 cm x 21,0 cm
italian

Texts by Laura Facchi, Maurizio Costantino, Agostino Pirella, Franco Rotelli, Mario Tommasini.

Hidden behind the walls of an old political prison on the Greek island of Leros was the world’s most notorious and brutal asylum for the insane. Beaten and tortured, they became wild as animals, unknown to the world until the walls were broken down in 1990 by Italian psychiatrists. Now back in the sane world, this follows their rehabilitated lives. A shocking testament to a regime that defies belief.

The Greek island of Leros was for 20 years and more the site of the world’s most notorious and brutal asylum for the insane. Alex Majoli has chronicled its inmates and their return to a sane world and integration into island society.

Thirty years ago, in the balmy Aegean blue, the island of Leros was commandeered for a social experiment that was to become a secret so terrible as to rival that of the Nazi death camps or the Stalinist gulags.

When the Greek psychiatric medical establishment reached the end of their perfunctorily useful treatment of their patients they sent them to Leros, and the asylum set up in the former political prison there. The staff were not doctors or nurses and had no medical training, other than herding goats. They were local islanders, and were used as guards, or filaks.

The guards quickly degenerated into thugs, who sought to control the madmen with the only methods available to them – brute force and terror. The inmates were systematically beaten, even tortured, and crushed of whatever sensibilities they once had.

They became animals, who defecated where they stood or crawled, who fought and killed themselves or each other, according to their needs, in a veritable Golgotha of despair, filth and violence. No human traits were recognisable among the inmates: even speech had become redundant.

In 1990 a team of Italian psychiatrists from Trieste, aided by volunteer care workers, managed to break down the walls of this madhouse. What they found shocked even them, as did the blank indifference of the guards. How else should they behave in a world deprived of reason?

Alex Majoli, born 1971 in Ravenna, Italy, joined the f45 studio in his native city, working alongside Daniele Casadio when 15 years old. He has been a member of the photographic agency Magnum since 2001. He lives and works in Milan and New York. His first book was ‘Leros’ (Trolley, 2003)

2 in stock

 
Genius: Alex Majoli

Softcover 1st (an attached text book)
West Publishing Zone (1999)
96 pages
68 duotone b/w photos
paperback 15,0 cm x 21,0 cm
italian

Texts by Laura Facchi, Maurizio Costantino, Agostino Pirella, Franco Rotelli, Mario Tommasini.

Hidden behind the walls of an old political prison on the Greek island of Leros was the world’s most notorious and brutal asylum for the insane. Beaten and tortured, they became wild as animals, unknown to the world until the walls were broken down in 1990 by Italian psychiatrists. Now back in the sane world, this follows their rehabilitated lives. A shocking testament to a regime that defies belief.

The Greek island of Leros was for 20 years and more the site of the world’s most notorious and brutal asylum for the insane. Alex Majoli has chronicled its inmates and their return to a sane world and integration into island society.

Thirty years ago, in the balmy Aegean blue, the island of Leros was commandeered for a social experiment that was to become a secret so terrible as to rival that of the Nazi death camps or the Stalinist gulags.

When the Greek psychiatric medical establishment reached the end of their perfunctorily useful treatment of their patients they sent them to Leros, and the asylum set up in the former political prison there. The staff were not doctors or nurses and had no medical training, other than herding goats. They were local islanders, and were used as guards, or filaks.

The guards quickly degenerated into thugs, who sought to control the madmen with the only methods available to them – brute force and terror. The inmates were systematically beaten, even tortured, and crushed of whatever sensibilities they once had.

They became animals, who defecated where they stood or crawled, who fought and killed themselves or each other, according to their needs, in a veritable Golgotha of despair, filth and violence. No human traits were recognisable among the inmates: even speech had become redundant.

In 1990 a team of Italian psychiatrists from Trieste, aided by volunteer care workers, managed to break down the walls of this madhouse. What they found shocked even them, as did the blank indifference of the guards. How else should they behave in a world deprived of reason?

Alex Majoli, born 1971 in Ravenna, Italy, joined the f45 studio in his native city, working alongside Daniele Casadio when 15 years old. He has been a member of the photographic agency Magnum since 2001. He lives and works in Milan and New York. His first book was ‘Leros’ (Trolley, 2003)

Weight 1 kg
Condition

LIKE NEW BOOKS

Edition

FIRST EDITION, RARE BOOKS

Publisher

West Publishing Zone

SKU: ISBN 88-87639-00-0 Category: Tags: , ,
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