Guilty Grounds

For Guilty Grounds, Dutch photographer Steffi Reimers traveled to Calabria in southern Italy. There, she explored the dark side of Calabrian history and the origins and kidnapping practices of one of the world’s most powerful criminal organizations, the ’Ndrangheta. She reveals the landscapes of the Aspromonte National Park as silent witnesses to the pervasive influence of the ‘Ndrangheta. Landscapes that were once pristine and peaceful now resonate with memories of events that have left their mark, subtly breaking the omertà’, the sacred code of silence, so central to the ‘Ndrangheta’s power.

This book shows Reimers’ images, but also tells the stories of the ’Ndrangheta’s victims and their family members. Often, their bodies were never found and are presumed to have been buried, destroyed, or fed to animals in Calabria’s unforgiving wilderness. And apart from that, it also tries to outline the context in which this all happened, through essays by experts. Finally Reimers tells her own story, the story of a young woman – a forensic photographer by day, but first and foremost an artist. While inspired by real events, her work is an artistic exploration, a personal and imaginative response to Calabria’s dark history. Throughout the process, she encounters obstacles that complicate her attempt to shape this story visually, foregrounding the tension between lived reality and artistic interpretation.