© Alessandro Gandolfi
In the book Homo Deus the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari talks about what the future of humanity could be like on the basis of its history and technological discoveries, hypothesizing, at a certain point, that men will make “a serious attempt to become immortal”. After reading the book, and taking inspiration from it, the Italian photographer Alessandro Gandolfi traveled to various countries to document the sector of longevity researchwhich involves many areas of medicine, genetic research and the study of life habits of those over the age of one hundred. In these days and until April 1, his work, Immortality, Inc., is exhibited in the Sunspace space in La Spezia.
Gandolfi collected the material between 2018 and 2019, a period in which he traveled to Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, the United States and Japan, photographing different realities that say something about the attempt to slow down aging and make us live as long as possible. but also how much a centuries-old desire it is and how the sector that deals with it is in continuous development.
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In his photos there are companies and startups that are focusing on cryopreservation, i.e. the conservation of the bodies of dead people at very low temperatures, waiting for technologies capable of completely restoring vital functions to be developed in the future. There are also university laboratories where you work with robots or companies that study the relationship between disease development and genetic predisposition. But there are also photos of people training; centenarians from the island of Okinawa, Japan (which has a very high longevity rate); and so-called “anti-aging pills” or machines to take care of your body.
Ogimi, Japan Haru Miyagi, 100 years old, at his home in Ogimi on the island of Okinawa. Haru lives alone, has a son who works in Tokyo and is a widow. Her husband died in World War II. In Japan Ogimi is known as the “village of longevity” due to its high percentage of centenarians. Photos and text: © Alessandro Gandolfi
Alexander Gandolfi is a photographer and journalist, founding member of the agency Parallelozero. Interested in the economic and cultural changes of society, his reports have appeared in numerous newspapers and have been exhibited in international festivals. With Immortality won a Sony Award in 2020.