Reggio Emilia, 16th edition of Fotografia Europea festival confirmed in May

The Fotografia Europea festival returns to Reggio Emilia, from May 21 to July 4, 2021: this year’s edition, number 16 of the festival, is entitled Sulla Luna e sulla Terra / Fate largo ai sognatori! (On the Moon and the Earth / Make way for dreamers!), and is inspired by the lines of a famous nursery rhyme by Gianni Rodari. Inspired by this sort of “appeal” of the great poet and writer, the festival intends to issue an invitation to everyone to continue to look up, especially in these moments of disorientation, to bring visual contributions that accompany the gazes toward new and necessary perspectives.

After a forced hiatus due to the limitations imposed by the pandemic, which led to the cancellation of the past edition, the festival, now in its 16th year, returns to invade the city with dozens of photographic projects that question the role of images and visual culture in this historical moment, focusing on the complex and multifaceted nature of images, which precisely because of their indeterminacy, impermanence, ambiguity and complexity, are an excellent starting point to help us rethink the world we live in.

“If it has not yet been proven that beauty will save the world, it is certain that beauty, as in the past, will help to make it live with intelligence, freedom and elevation of the person,” says the mayor of Reggio Emilia, Luca Vecchi. “Re-proposing, boldly, Fotografia Europea in 2021 has this main objective: to help people, whoever they are, wherever they come from in the world, to live and revive thanks to photography and the artists who propose it. We will have important and innovative exhibition innovations. We will have a prestigious artistic direction of the Festival, strengthened and in continuity with the long past experience, appreciated to the point of making Reggio Emilia and its Fotografia Europea festival an international reference point.”

“In recent months,” says councillor for culture and territorial marketing Annalisa Rabitti, “the Reggio Emilia cultural world, forced into a forced and painful pause, has responded to the Covid emergency with numerous dynamic and creative online initiatives. But the culture we love is in attendance. That is why we are planning spring activities and one of its highlights: the Fotografia Europea festival. We have not given up organizing it and renewing it in program and artistic direction that opens to international horizons with new participations. We believe that photography can help us imagine the future by producing questions, raising doubts and opinions, drawing attention to limitations, but also helping us generate solutions to overcome them. That is why for the new edition of the Fotografia Europea festival we have chosen a line from a poem by Gianni Rodari: On the Moon and the Earth / make way for dreamers! In Reggio, culture does not stop, does not give up and will not stay in its place.”

The Festival, produced and promoted by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia and the Palazzo Magnani Foundation, will once again this year, as usual, feature a packed program of events, in the presence of international artists: moreover, in order to better coexist with the restrictions that will still accompany us for the next few months, this year Fotografia Europea will start with a preview, on May 14, offering for the first time five open-air exhibitions. Five projects by contemporary photographers will create as many unique setups in squares and places in Reggio Emilia, designed specifically for outdoor viewing, so as to ensure enjoyment in any condition and to a wide audience. One of them will be dedicated to the winner of the Open Call reserved for emerging talents, open from today until Feb. 22, 2021. European photographers, curators and collectives of any age are asked to develop a project on the theme of this edition, designed for an outdoor installation. To the winner, the Festival will provide a grant of 3,000 euros for the installation of the project, which will become part of the official European Photography circuit.

The Open Call works will be selected by a jury composed of the Festival’s artistic direction, which, another important novelty this year, is renewed. Along with Walter Guadagnini, it will be Diane Dufour (director of Magnum Photos from 2000 to 2007, founder of the Parisian exhibition space Le Bal and affectionate collaborator of the festival from 2015 to 2017) and Tim Clark (British curator and lecturer, chief editor of 1000 Words, one of the leading online photography magazines, which he founded in 2008, a point of reference for contemporary photographic culture) who will select all the Festival’s proposals. A renewed artistic direction, able to combine international looks and enrich with different sensibilities the offer of the many exhibitions available to the visitor. For all info you can visit the Fotografia Europea website.

In the photo: the 2019 edition of Fotografia Europea. Ph. Credit Giulia Gibertini

Reggio Emilia, 16th edition of Fotografia Europea festival confirmed in May

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