Alys Tomlinson
The Islanders

Over the course of two years, British photographer Alys Tomlinson documented the traditional costumes and masks worn during annual festivals and celebrations on the islands of the Venetian lagoon, Sicily, and Sardinia. Shot on analog film with a large-format plate camera, the images invite us into a mysterious world divided between the sacred and the profane, capturing part of the mystery and atavism of these deeply rooted cultural rituals and beliefs. In this work, the images inhabit a borderland between fiction and reality.

The Queen, traditional costume, Venice

Photograph by Alys Tomlinson from the The Islander/Gli Isolani project

Su Boe and Su Merdule, Ottana, Sardinia

Photograph by Alys Tomlinson from the The Islander/Gli Isolani project

I Giudei, San Fratello, Sicily

Photograph by Alys Tomlinson from the The Islander/Gli Isolani project

Bio 

Alys Tomlinson (b. 1975, UK) is a photographic artist. She explores themes of faith, ritual, and identity, working primarily in black and white and large format.
She is the author of the projects Ex-Voto, Lost Summer, and Gli Isolani (The Islanders).

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