Morbid Hilarity Ensues in Sandro Giordano’s Incredible Series “In Extremis (Bodies With No Regret)”

Last Updated on 06/27/2014 by Chris Gampat

All photographs by Sandro Giordano. Used with permission.

There’s something staggering about Italian photographer Sandro Giordano’s  series “In Extremis (Bodies With No Regret)”, which had already blown up in Instagram with more than 32,000 followers. And it’s not just because of the blatant absurdity of it all, with every photo’s subject haplessly meeting her end in a face-plant type of fall, the beloved objects she’d been carrying moments earlier in a heap of mess around her.

The ironic vibrancy stemming from the burst and pop of colors in each of Sandro’s photograph captivates an audience’s attention first, all the while providing a sort of contrast to the morbid demise of each subject, which is slowly revealed later. And it’s this juxtaposition that really makes this series incredible and strangely, darkly comedic.

And while In Extremis is not exactly still waters – it’s unabashed and visually in-your-face – it runs deeper that one might expect. As Sandro tells the Phoblographer,

“My photographs are “short stories” about a falling-down world. Each shot “tells” about worn out characters who, as if a sudden black-out of mind and body took over, let themselves crash with no attempt to save themselves, unable, because of the fatigue of the everyday “representation” of living, oppressed by “appearance” instead of simply “existing”.

We live in a world of faces distorted by plastic surgery, which serves us “fixed”, “stereotyped” images, “image/object” in which personality sells itself to a preset marketing model. I believe that perfection is in imperfection, it is in strong contrasts, in frailty, and in the humanity that makes each individual different from the next. I hide the face of my characters because their BODY speaks for them, and the fall is the point of no return. There’s a saying: “you must hit rock bottom to start over”, well the “FALL” of my characters is their “HITTING ROCK BOTTOM”, they reach their “LIMIT” beyond which their “FALSE SELF” cannot go.”

Rich, funny, and a deep reflection of the modern man’s tendency to lead himself to his own ruin, In Extremis is one series we should be following on social media, if only to remind us to slow down and spend some time with our true selves. See some of the photos from the series after the jump.

Follow Sandro Giordano and his incredible work on Facebook and on Instagram at @_remmidemmi.