Hidden Islam – 479 Comments: the Photobook That Contains No Photos

THE GUARDIAN
By Sean O'Hagan
Image-free … Nicoló Degiorgis’ Hidden Islam – 479 Comments Photograph: PR
PUBLISHING---The short afterword to photographer Nicoló Degiorgis’s new book reads: “On the 15th of July 2014 writer and critic Sean O’Hagan wrote an article for theguardian.com entitled ‘Arles 2014: Nicoló Degiorgis lifts the veil on Italy’s Islamophobia’. For five days it was possible to leave comments. The article received 479 posts. It can be read at: http://gu.com/p/4vvjk.” Degiorgis describes himself as “a photographer trained in documentary traditions”. Yet "Hidden Islam – 479 Comments" contains no photographs. It is a conceptual followup to his acclaimed photobook "Hidden Islam," a thought-provoking study chronicling the makeshift places where Italy’s 1.45 million Muslims worship, the country having only eight official mosques. The new work simply reprints, in book form, the comments posted in response to my review (these are punctuated with fold-out maps showing the sites of worship).[link]