In Focus: “Dead End” by Nicola Moscelli and “The Lines We Draw” by Lavinia Parlamenti and Manfredi Pantanella

The latest finds from our community artists’ photobooks

“In Focus” is a series of reviews in which we hunt down and peruse our favourite publications off the shelves of our community artists. This month, we are taking a closer look at “Dead End” by Nicola Moscelli and “The Lines We Draw” by Lavinia Parlamenti and Manfredi Pantanella.

Published by Penisola Edizioni, Nicola Moscelli’s “Dead End” is a research driven visual investigation of the Mexico-US border. (In)famously shaped by wars, territorial acquisitions, and profound economic and social divide, the history of this region encapsulates a series of dynamics that extend far beyond its geographical limits. As Moscelli says: “To talk about this border, is to talk about all borders.”

The photobook can be roughly divided into three main parts, where the first and last sections, called Mexico and United States of America, retain the same structure. On the page, Moscelli stitches these ordinary scenes, screenshots from Google Street View taken on both sides of the border, with snippets of texts and various forms of information. The precision with which this context is layered onto the image mirrors Moscelli’s analytical approach and informs the layout across the book: images always occupy the bottom half of the page, stretching across a double spread. The top half of the page accommodates a reference code, date, location, and what is referred to as evidence: fragments of text drawn from archival documents and clippings that are either evoked by the image or refer to events that took place there. Part printed in a bright shade of yellow, the middle section of the book is heavily text based, spanning interviews, project texts, and an historical overview; a further separation, although metaphorical, between the two countries.

The title of the project, “Dead End,” can be read in multiple ways. On a literal level, it refers to the streets that terminate abruptly upon reaching the border. Metaphorically, it alludes to the struggles of those who inhabit that area, bearing the weight of decisions imposed by distant centres of power. Finally, as Nicola Moscelli explains, his own research is, in a sense, a dead end. The work offers no resolution or conclusion; instead, it functions as an act of service. The book is the step that consolidates this project as a method, a way of researching and documenting that could potentially be applied to other contexts; a guide for people to try and understand these territories beyond their appearance or own preconceptions.

In “The Lines We Draw,” Lavinia Parlamenti and Manfredi Pantanella explore five territories that have declared themselves independent yet remain unrecognised by the international community: the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, the Republic of Catalonia, the Republic of Artsakh, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. The book, self-published by the duo in a first edition of 750 copies, brings together a collection of photographs produced across these contested territories.

While the project examines the forces shaping both personal and national identity, the images capture the tension that emerges when the two fail to align. In doing so, “The Lines We Draw” questions what defines nationality in the first place - and, in turn, how nationality comes to define individuals. The scenes proposed by Parlamenti and Pantanella’s photographic collaboration feel unplaceable, perhaps a direct result of the artists’ attempt to photograph the inexistent, a process they describe as “playing with reality and photographic illusion in a near-hysterical game of ping-pong”.

Diffuse glows and harsh flashes, absurd compositions, and dreamlike backgrounds foster a surreal visual language that reinforces a sense of dislocation. As its title suggests, “The Lines We Draw” highlights the arbitrary and human-made nature of borders, while also pointing to the tangible consequences these constructed lines have on the lives and sense of self of those who don’t fit within their prescribed ones. Through a series of images that resist immediate classification, Parlamenti and Pantanella reflect on what constitutes personal identity when it exists in a liminal relationship to national identity.

Both books invite the readers to navigate the works in autonomy, guided only by subtle structural cues. In “Dead End,” the absence of captions beneath the images and the placement of text above them tasks the reader with tracing the connection between word and image. In The Lines We Draw, photographs from different territories are presented in dialogue with each other without immediate differentiation; like in “Dead End,” readers can follow a system of codes, or rely on subtle paper variations to distinguish each country. By allowing the public to forge their own path through the publications, both works resist rigid, linear interpretations, recasting the very notion of border into something fluid and shifting. Despite their contrasting visual and methodological approaches, both projects reveal the border as an arbitrary condition. Through their engagement with different geopolitical contexts, these artists challenge the conventional authority of the nation-state, question its deterministic logic, and invite viewers to reconsider their own assumptions about identity, territory, and belonging.