Speciale Diciottoventicinque, PER TERRA
curated by Alessandro Bartoli, Fabio Boni, Fabrizio Cicconi, Laura Sassi
Special eighteentwentyfive is a photography project targeted at young people between the ages of 18 and 25.
Over eighty youths make up the group coordinated and directed by four professional photographers: Alessandro Bartoli, Fabio Boni, Fabrizio Cicconi and Laura Sassi.
This year the four tutors have chosen different fields of investigation, four different approaches and mutually complementary, interdisciplinary themes: The Earth, the Soil and the Stories; The Earth, the Land and Man; The Earth, the Land and Food; and The Earth and the Land.
As with any publicly commissioned project, each group has formulated a possible path of investigation for its project that is interwoven with those of the others.
Four paths in a single journey linked with the concept of Fotografia Europea 2015: Earth Effect.
The Earth, the Soil and the Stories
A garden, a park, a vegetable patch, a flower-bed, a courtyard – not extraordinary places but territories to be explored over time and through the seasons, places in which micro-stories develop with actors drawn from our daily life: a friend, a family member, a next-door neighbour or an animal. The visual narratives intertwine with different finds: soil, sand, blades of grass, fragments of plaster, collected emblems from our culture and from our roots, to be exhibited alongside the photos.
The Earth, the Land and Man
Where was I born? Where do I come from? How long have I lived here? Where have I left my roots? Is this my land? This is a project about people and their origins, about our city and its inhabitants, old and new, aimed at creating a map of faces, people and families through their portraits. As captions, testimonies and phrases of the people they portray, they will convey the irreplaceable value of memory.
The Earth, the Land and Food
The exploitation of the land to boost agricultural production takes place at the expense of the essence of nourishment. The roots of our grain no longer reach deep into the soil; they no longer tap into the true nourishment of the land. They feed off the chemical fertilizers provided by man, which make the soil increasingly arid and depleted. The images deliver the positive and negative effects of what we eat, of organically or industrially produced vegetables.
The Earth and the Land
The land does not give up, it sends us signals, makes its marks, forms small, spontaneous landscapes in places where we have tried to tether it, cover it with asphalt, bend it to our will.
The investigation focuses on marks and signs, as a discovery of forms in places where the land creates. It is a photo-documentary, a study of the colours and lights which enhance lines and forms as a natural expression of beauty.
