The 14th Lodi Ethical Photography Festival kicks off. Here's what's on offer

From September 30 to October 29, 2023, the Lodi Ethical Photography Festival returns, now in its fourteenth edition: twenty exhibitions, nearly one hundred photographers from forty different countries and five continents, with a total of more than seven hundred images on display.

The centerpiece of the event is the World Report Award - Documenting Humanity. Beginning with the MASTER category, won by Evgeniy Maloletka with the reportage The Siege of Mariupol, in which he chronicled the dramatic Russian siege of the devastated Ukrainian city with tens of thousands of civilians losing their lives or forced to flee; the SPOTLIGHT category goes to Bob Miller for the reportage The Last Generation: Zoey’s Dream, in which teenager Zoey Allen’s dreams collide with the crisis of America’s midsize farms, where she also lives; special mention in the Spotlight section goes to Sarah Pabst and her Everyone in Me is a Bird, an intimate work in which the mourning for loss and the joy of a new birth go on to shape the perception andexperience of the everyday; the SHORT STORY category was won by Alessandro Cinque with the reportage Alpaqueros, which tells the issue of the climate crisis through the situation being experienced by alpaca breeders in Peru; special mention in the Short Story section goes to Luisa Lauxen Dörr and to her Imilla, which is the name of a collective of Bolivian skaters who wear traditional clothes to fight against discrimination; the STUDENT category, won by Gerd Waliszewski with Between the Sirens, will propose the harsh reality of Ukraine invaded by war, where young people try to live their daily lives regularly interrupted by the sirens ofalarms and incoming missiles; finally, the SINGLE SHOT section was won by Mohammad Rakibul Hasan with The Blue Fig, a reflection on global warming that seems to disproportionately impact some countries rather than others, such as Bangladesh. All of the exhibitions will be on view at Palazzo Barni, except for the Single Shot route exhibited at Centropadana Bank.

Also this year, Lodi, in collaboration with Bipielle Arte, will host the only Lombardy stop of the traveling international exhibition of World Press Photo, the great international competition of photojournalism and documentary photography that has been taking place for more than fifty years and is organized by the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam. Nearly one hundred and fifty images come from all continents to tell incredible stories. These are signed works for major international publications such as National Geographic, BBC, CNN, The New York Times, Le Monde, and El Pais.

Great attention will be given to the section A Look at the World, which can be visited at the Provincial Palace and offers an itinerary created in collaboration with Agence France-Press on the climate crisis. Droughts, fires, and floods are increasingly frequent as are rising sea levels, melting glaciers, and heat waves, phenomena that affect different areas of the planet. In every corner of the Earth, AFP photographers have documented the effects and consequences that are threatening both wildlife and humans.

This year’s Insight Space will feature two new projects by the nonprofit organization Vital Impacts at whose helm is Ami Vitale, a well-known National Geographic photographer. The exhibition will be presented in two versions: the first, outdoor, will be set up at the city’s public gardens and will feature fifty images by young photographers from around the world who participated in the Vital Impact Grant, an award created to support those who are committed to nature photography and activism on behalf of the Planet. The indoor version, on the other hand, will feature many masters of nature photography, whose work will be displayed in the former Church of the Angel. These images are part of the winter collection of shots that their authors have granted for a fundraiser, which aims to support the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Kenya, a place for which Ami Vitale, founder of Vital Impact, has long been advocating.

The Nonprofit Space in the cloister of the former Gorini Hospital will host four projects this year: photographer Filippo Venturi for the organization PSCORE with Awakenings, which tells the story of how each year many North Koreans, particularly women, attempt to flee in search of a better life for themselves and their families; Spain’s Maria Clauss for the NGO Medicos del Mundo with Donde no habite el olvido, about the victims of reprisals in the Spanish Civil War; Davide Torbidi for the Lodi Chamber of Labor with the project Ho visto e non ho più dimenticato, on the issue of the high numbers of work-related injuries and deaths in Italy; and finally, the project Vivere la bellezza (Living Beauty) by the ONLUS Nuova Assistenza Social Cooperative Society, which transformed some of the world’s best-known works of art into photographs thanks to the operators-photographers and patients who lent themselves to this collaboration.

TheLives of Others, a thematic space at Palazzo Modignani, will contain four photographic focuses that aim to investigate the close relationship between people and the place where they live, the traditions that are carried on but also the changes that affect societies.

Laura Morton then takes us on a journey through Silicon Valley where the protagonist is technology: the new frontier of the American dream; Paul Ratje recounts the provinces of Sichuan and Qinghai, on the border between China and Tibet, and the new generations no longer bound only to the customs of the past but seeking new professions and a modern way of life; Toby Binber spent many, many years on the streets of Belfast with the young people who have now become almost adults in a city that has not changed; and finally Lukas Kreibig who talks about climate change in Greenland and how it is going to impact the lives of Inuit communities.

Finally, Elegia Lodigiana by Gabriele Cecconi will be set up in the Cavallerizza venue. Since early this year, photographer Gabriele Cecconi, an internationally renowned reporter with experience on environmental issues, has arrived in the Lodi area to lay his gaze on this territory. The decision to propose a photographic survey is significant not only because of the anthropological characteristics of this area, but also because of the water crisis that hit northern Italy in 2022, with dramatic consequences on the economic and social fabric of the area. Generation after generation, water has been a resource that has enabled the sustenance and development of an economic area among the most productive and fertile in Europe. All this is now in danger, and the greatest risk is the loss of rural civilization. We thank the Province of Lodi, the Muzza Consortium, SAL Lodi water company, FUJIFILM Italia and BMW-MINI Dealers of the Carteni Group for supporting the project.

Simultaneously with the Festival will be held FFE - OFF, a circuit of photographic exhibitions, scattered in stores, bars, restaurants, galleries, cultural clubs and public areas of the city. The objective is to enhance and disseminate the works of anyone who wants to propose their own achievements. For this reason there are no thematic or genre constraints, as FFE - OFF is not an extension of the main program of the Ethical Photography Festival.

The Festival’s educational team will offer school tours by reservation Monday through Friday for students from primary, secondary, academies and photography schools. On Sundays in October, the educational team will also offer the opportunity to attend Kids Labs, photography workshops for children ages 5 to 11 to get closer to photography and discover the world through images.

All exhibitions will be accessible only if you have a day ticket or subscription that can be purchased online or on site. The exhibition at the city’s public gardens, on the other hand, is free access.

For all information and details you can visit www.festivaldellafotografiaetica.it

Photo © Laura Morton

The 14th Lodi Ethical Photography Festival kicks off. Here's what's on offer

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