AROUND PHOTOGRAPHY

Rorhof is a studio producing books, exhibitions and workshops around photography. They are based in an old farm in the city of Bolzano Bozen in the north of Italy. 

Hidden Islam
Nicoló Degiorgis
Introduction: Martin Parr

RORHOF May 2014

From the introduction by Martin Parr: Consider these facts. In Italy the right to worship, without discrimination, is enshrined within the constitution. There are 1.35 million Muslims in Italy and yet, officially, only eight mosques in the whole country.One consequence is that the Muslim population have accumulated a huge number of makeshift and temporary places of worship. These are housed in a variety of buildings including lock ups, garages, shops, warehouses and old factories.This shortage of places to worship is particularly acute in north east Italy – where the photographer Nicolò Degiorgis lives – home to many anti-Islamic campaigns headed by the right wing party Lega Nord. The dull images of the many and diverse buildings that house the makeshift mosques are printed on folded pages. You open up the gatefold to reveal the scenes inside the mosques, shot in full colour. The size of the gatherings varies, from large crowds who sometimes pray outside to a small room full to bursting, or to intimate groups of two or three Muslims.Degiorgis provides a fascinating glimpse of hidden world and leaves the conclusions about this project entirely in our own hands.

Oasis Hotel
Nicoló Degiorgis
RORHOF May 2014

This book documents a hitchhike along China’s Cross-Desert Highway, a road built in the mid 1990s to help the extraction of oil. It stretches for more than 500km from north to south across the Taklamakan, one of the world’s most inhospitable deserts. The journey records the road and its people - truck drivers, cotton pickers, oil well workers and prostitutes, whose lives are caught up in the dependancy and desolation of the prospering oil industry.