Reggio Emilia, the 2021 edition of European Photography is dedicated to dreamers

Back in Reggio Emilia from May 21 to July 4, 2021, is the Fotografia Europea festival, promoted and produced by the Palazzo Magnani Foundation in collaboration with the Municipality of Reggio Emilia and with the contribution of the Emilia-Romagna Region.

Under the artistic direction of Diane Dufour, Tim Clark and Walter Guadagnini, the sixteenth edition of the festival’s offerings will be further enriched, and inspired by a famous line by Gianni Rodari, “On the Moon and the Earth / make way for dreamers!”

After the cancellation of the 2020 edition due to the health emergency, Fotografia Europea is offering dozens of photographic projects, many of which aim to question the role of images and visual culture in this particular period, with an emphasis on the nature of images, from which it is possible to rethink the world we live in.

The Cloisters of St. Peter ’s will again host nine exhibitions in this edition.

Photographers Vittorio Mortarotti and Anush Hamzehian are exhibiting The Island, while Noémie Goudal is presenting Telluris, in which she is able to bring together real and theoretical geographies, creating a space between physical reality and its mental representation. David Jiménez with Aura plays with the limits of perception, while Raymond Meeks with the project Halfstory Halflife, made at the Catskill Mountains waterfalls in New York, investigates friendship and youth. Donovan Wylie with The Tower Series examines the mostly invisible architectures that weave the presence of conflict into the fabric of everyday life, while Piergiorgio Casotti and Emanuele Brutti in the project INDEX G, curated by Fiorenza Pinna, stage a kind of theatrical work of silence, made up of the absence of characters and their peculiar stories, in which things seen and told remain unspoken and suspended in time. Concluding the exhibition on the second floor are two young artists, Lebohang Kganye and Yasmina Benabderrahmane. The former presents Tell Tale and the new production In Search for Memory in which she tackles conflicting stories told in multiple ways, in a combination of memory and fantasy; the latter presents La Bete, a journey through the sand dunes and plains of Morocco, her native country, attempting, through visual language, to recover what she has lost in fourteen years of absence.
Finally, in the ground-floor rooms, is Universo Dentro, a solo exhibition by artist Sophie Whettnall curated by Carine Fol, produced in partnership with Brussels-based Centrale for Contemporary Art.

Palazzo Magnani repurposes True Fictions - Visionary Photography from the 1970s to the Present: an exhibition curated by Walter Guadagnini and set up for the fall, but remained open for only three weeks. This is the first anthological exhibition in Italy dedicated to staged photography, the trend that, since the 1980s, has revolutionized the language of photography and the place of photography within the contemporary arts, presenting the more imaginative side of photography.

Palazzo da Mosto hosts the exhibition Rooms that Dreamed Rooms, from an idea by Thomas Demand and Martin Boyce, a project by Sabine Vollmann-Schipper and Laura Gasparini for the Girefin Collection of Contemporary Art in Reggio Emilia. A dialogue between two artists working broadly with multiple materials and languages that will offer a stimulating and complex experience in which references, associations and narratives overlap. The ground floor of the venue will host the exhibition Home Is Where One Starts From dedicated to Photobooks, which presents a selection of books of both a documentary and artistic nature that address the theme of dwelling in the multiplicity of its meanings.

For the first time in the Festival’s history, eight projects by contemporary photographers will feature unique open-air installations in eight city areas on May 15, 2021.
Alex Majoli presents Opera Aperta, a project commissioned and produced by Fondazione I Teatri and Reggio Parma Festival, in collaboration with Fotografia Europea, in which he interprets the theme of theater and its connection to the city; Joan Fontcuberta presents an important participatory project, created to donate to Reggio Emilia a permanent work dedicated to the collections of Palazzo dei Musei, which has always been a source of inspiration for the Catalan photographer; at Parco del Popolo Jeff Mermelstein is exhibiting #nyc, a multifaceted, comic and heartbreaking investigation of contemporary life; Antoine d’Agata’s Virus, a project dedicated to the Covid-19 epidemic, will be set up on the windows of a building on Via Secchi; finally, in Piazza Vittoria, Soham Gupta’s Eden exhibition will be dedicated to an imaginary city that gradually gives way to nature. Alongside these will also be the exhibition of the winning photographer of the Open Call launched by the Festival thanks to the support of Iren: Marco Di Noia with the project Tottori tells the story of a strange astronomical phenomenon; an imagined story that becomes photography, illustration and video: a multimedia work inspired by the dunes of a small and quiet town on the west coast of Japan.

The open space will also be confronted with the young people of the Speciale Diciottoventicinque, a training course organized by Fotografia Europea at the end of which the eight young people aged 18 to 25, led by tutor Sara Munari, will set up Terra - Luna, the photographic project that will involve visitors in a reflection on photography through play.

Spazio Gerra also offers an installation this year in the garden behind its facility. In Back to land, five national and international artists are invited to connect the theme of European Photography with a critical reflection dedicated to regional rural areas, with a view to the enhancement and revival of lifestyles that are possible today also thanks to new technologies.

At the Cloisters of San Domenico goes on display Young Italian Photography, a project of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia in its eighth edition, which enhances the talents of contemporary Italian photography under 35. In the group exhibition Reconstruction, the projects of Domenico Camarda, Irene Fenara, Alisa Martynova, Francesca Pili, Vaste Program (Leonardo Magrelli, Alessandro Tini, Giulia Vigna), Martina Zanin, Elena Zottola, chosen by an international jury composed of curators Ilaria Campioli and Daniele De Luigi and representatives of partner festivals, explore the combination of photography and imagination to attempt a more authentic understanding of reality.

The Panizzi Library with Treasures on display exhibits some of its most precious objects: items collected over more than two centuries that have become the heritage and pride of the city, while the Civic Museums with Encounters! Art and People exhibits the shots born from the long workshop involving photographer Luca Manfredi and people with frailty: an idea born from the project B. Right to Beauty of Reggio City without Barriers, dedicated to the encounter between creativity and frailty.

Also in this edition, the CIRCUIT OFF, an independent section, will present projects by professional photographers alongside young people with first experiences, enthusiasts and associations: stores, restaurants, studios, courtyards and private homes, historic venues, art galleries, window or open-air exhibitions will guarantee in this very special year a wide fruition in any condition. Also part of this circuit is the OFF@school project involving schools throughout the province of Reggio Emilia.

Brand new is Photonica, a musical project created in collaboration with The Italian New Wave (a format of Club To Club Festival to promote new Italian musical creativity) under the artistic direction of Max Casacci, in which the mixture of images and electronic music builds a musical declination of Fotografia Europea.

Alongside the exhibitions there is a calendar of events designed not only for the three inaugural days (May 21, 22, 23) but also in the following weeks until July 4: lectures, meetings with artists, book signings, portfolio readings, workshops, a bookfair dedicated to independent publishers and performances designed to nurture a cultural confrontation that starting from photography also addresses cross-cutting issues.

If, due to restrictions, it is not possible to visit the exhibition spaces directly, the exhibitions will be visible online and each meeting and conference will also be broadcast via live streaming.

For info: fotografiaeuropea.it

Image: Noémie Goudal, In Search of the First Line III (2014; 168 x 225 cm) Courtesy the artist

Reggio Emilia, the 2021 edition of European Photography is dedicated to dreamers

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