Photography changes nothing. Violence continues, poverty continues. Children are still being killed in stupid wars. - Letizia Battaglia

The Photographers’ Gallery presents a solo show of work by Italian photographer Letizia Battaglia (1935-2022).  

Born in Palermo, Sicily in 1935, Battaglia began her photographic career in the early 1970s, when she was in her forties. She documented everyday life, alongside the brutal reality of the Mafia and their victims in Sicily during the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. Her images are some of the best-known records of life in the shadow of the Mafia. In her relentless pursuit against organised crime, she used her camera to document the daily terror, putting it on the front page. Reporting for the daily newspaper L’Ora, she or one of her colleagues, was present at every major crime scene in the city over two decades.