2 perforated sheets with 42 bingo cards in plastic bag, edition of 600. Photography by René Beekvelt, design by Rob van Hoesel, Carel Fransen, text in English and Neapolitan.

For hundreds of years Catholic Neapolitans have gathered around for ‘la smorfia’, a bingo-game, where dreams are associated with the numbers 1 to 90. ‘La Mamma’ is 52, if she is laughing, the number is 9, meaning fertility. The cat is 3, the child is 2 and 89 „la vecchia“, is the old woman. The lottery spans your whole life. From naked birth to naked death, through hard times and warm summer nights.
René Beekvelt often visited the city of Naples. He wandered around through the narrow streets where there is unlikely chaos. He felt the fear of being robbed, but he intensely enjoyed the sincerity of the Neapolitans and all facets of life taking place so openly.
A selection of his images are used in this Smorfia card-set.

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