TRANSCULTURALITY

“Every photograph is the last witness, if not the last evidence, of a moment that would otherwise be lost forever; it’s the sense of loss and of time passing…and of death. […] In the action of capturing an instant and making it exist once again, there is life in death; it’s a bit like the spirit and the body, you might say that the body, the event, disappears in the instant in which it is captured, but the soul remains and the photograph is the soul of every instant, the soul of the person whose end we just saw…”

– Sarah Moon (Coincidences, Delpire, 2001)

These are the last few days to visit the wonderful Sarah Moon’s exhibition at Palazzo Fortuny in Venice (open until 1 May 2016), curated by Adele Re Rebaudengo and Alexandra de Léal.

Sarah Moon (1941) is one of the greatest photographers of all times. The exhibition at Palazzo Fortuny enchanted me, I felt mesmerized by the photographs and their perfect symbiotic relation with the venue’s atmosphere. While admiring the inkjet and silver salts prints, the curator Adele Re Rebaudengo explained to me how this exhibition was conceived, sprouting from her passion for Venice and her friendship with Sarah Moon. In 2015, Ms. Re Rebaudengo curated an exhibition of Sarah Moon’s images at Palazzo Madama in Turin, a project by Agarttha Arte, where she presented her works about Palazzo Fortuny along with the works of Pino Musi and Marco Maria Zanin about Casa Mollino. The fascinating theme “house-museums of artists” was the starting point and the first inspiration that brought about the idea of this exhibition. “Sarah Moon is the ideal photographer to show at Palazzo Fortuny” states Ms. Re Rebaudengo, “her brilliant personality, her photographic talent and her artistic path make her and her images the ideal guests for an exhibition at this Palazzo”. Our dialogue continues and she entertains me with fascinating details regarding the personal history and style of the artist.

Sarah Moon is intrigued and inspired by the concept of Time.She approaches her subject with an oneiric and imaginative expressivity, staging an intimate reality filtered by memory and the unconscious. She uses light in a special way, blending white areas and creating mysterious atmospheres. In fact, mystery and sensuality are at the very core of her work. She avoids codified languages, capturing emotional scenes.

Moon’s images recall fragments of an inner story, memories of a magnificent past. The photographs on show are a tribute to Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo (1871-1949), an outstanding artist with an eclectic personality: painter, photographer, inventor, stage designer, and designer of fabrics. The images portray Palazzo Pesaro Orfei (otherwise known as Palazzo Fortuny), venue of the exhibition: on the one hand, images of the house-museum; on the other hand, details of the statues housed within, a homage to the plissé. In the Gothic Palazzo Mr. Fortuny set up one of the most importantworkshop-studios for the creation of sumptuous fabrics and drapes which were used for the clothes he designed, now on permanent show.

Sarah Moon, like Mariano Fortuny, is a rather eclectic character. During her career, she has turned from being a model into being a photographer and filmmaker. A free spirit, she is an extraordinary photographer with a very humble view of her work. Moon believes that “chance” dominates over “will”, as if fate would decide everything. Images are vulnerable and ephemeral, they represent an echo of what the photographer has in mind. She shoots intimate photos recreating surreal ambiences where light plays a fundamental role and an imaginary reality is staged, as in a visionary process. And if “the most creative part of us is the part closest to our childhood”, the concepts of Time andMemory return cyclically in Moon’s work where specific importance is given to Life in all its forms.

Sarah Moon’s poetic and visionary style is perfectly suited to Palazzo Fortuny and to Venice, the enigmatic city par excellence. Furthermore, as revealed by Ms. Re Rebaudengo, new and very interesting projects will soon connect the French photographer again to this city…

Photo: © Federico Sutera

Photographing the Lagoon: the Venetian Struggle for a Sustainable Future

Venice is the city of the future… Ideally. An enchanting maze surrounded by sea; an artificial island built on water and governed by its natural rules, high and low tides. A city that still maintains its original structure on a human scale, entirely pedestrian. No cars, no bicycles, you can either walk or jump on a public water bus, sail on your private ship or your friends’ one, or pay a water taxi driver or a gondolier to guide you through the canals of this ancient and uncanny metropolis. While having a stroll through the Venetian calli (streets) on the one hand, you have the undeniable feeling of being surrounded by palazzi (palaces), squares, bridges and monuments impregnated with history, and, on the other hand, you might have the perception of exploring, secretly and silently, a parallel dimension, futuristic and eclectic.

The splendour of the golden age is prominent and despite its undeniable and fascinating decadence, Venice is still one of the most important cities, a cultural point of reference worldwide. However, nowadays, more than ever, Venice has an uncertain destiny. The old town has an everyday decreasing population of 57 thousands inhabitants and draws 30 million tourists per year. Understandably, everybody wants to be in Venice, at least once in their lifetime and at least for one day. Tourism is a very important industry for Venice and, more than in every other place in the world, needs to be managed in a sustainable, ecological and constructive way. Otherwise, this marvellous city is at serious risk.

In the past years, concern increased among Venetians and among people who care for the future of this city, with reference to some aspects of mass tourism and in particular to cruise ships entering the lagoon. An ever-increasing social movement of Venetians started to raise its voice, among them environmentalists, academics, journalists, photographers and people working in the tourism sector itself. The main common point of interest connecting a plurality of people seems to be: the cruise ships should remain out of the lagoon.

Raising awareness about the 'big ships issue' is fundamental for the future of Venice, according to Silvio Testa, journalist and activist of the Venetian social movement Comitato No Grandi Navi (“Committee No Big Ships”). Mr. Testa is the author of two booklets denouncing, on the basis of a considerable number of reliable sources, the high risks of allowing giant ships to enter Venice. “Pollution, erosion of the sea bottom, dangerous hydrodynamic effects, possible accidents and much more… The lagoon has a fragile ecosystem that needs to be carefully safeguarded”, he states with a worried glimpse on his face. The lagoon of Venice is Venice itself, its heart.

Recently, a group of photographers have shown their dissent through their images as part of the first public event promoted by “Awakening”, an international photographers collective. In December 2014, eight large images - four meters by three - of cruise ships crossing the lagoon were displayed in the streets of Venice. The aim of Awakening is to focus mainly on social news, to showcase images in large formats in the streets for free in order to sensitize - “wake up”- passers-by. Public spaces are not damaged, only water based adhesives are used and images are displayed mainly on scaffolds. Photo agencies are also involved in the distribution of the images, among them is Getty Images. However, Awakening projects are solely funded by the photographers of the collective, in order to maintain complete independence.

Marco Secchi, photojournalist and spokesperson of the collective explains that: “Awakening was founded in the UK in 2013 and then moved to Italy, to Venice, Milan, Rome and Genoa. Several photographers are Venetians, that is why we started from Venice. Furthermore, Venice is an incredible cultural hub, anything that is done in Venice is very international and raises straight away an international interest. We would like to raise awareness, experimenting new ways of doing photojournalism, using large photo formats displayed in urban spaces as a new way of having an impact in society”. He points out that “images are accompanied with a short text that includes some information, but the text is as neutral as possible because the image should speak for itself and each person is free to draw the conclusions”.

Federico Sutera - photographer, contributor to the Awakening project, and co-founder of Isolab - a centre for photography research in Venice -  remarks that he likes the idea of bringing images that deal with important social, political, cultural, and educational issues to a wide public. “It’s a slap in the face” he says “I believe that, nowadays, images should not only be printed, gathered and showed within the four walls of an exhibition space for few interested people. Photography can have a significant role in raising awareness through periodical, magazines and newspapers. Then, why not sharing big format images in public spaces?”. In fact, the photographs lasted for months in the Venetian streets and squares - a few are still even visible today after one year.  Thanks to them, people from very different backgrounds seemed to have a very strong positive reaction, embracing the cause. Every day more people are themselves documenting and sharing information, taking part of social movements fighting for a sustainable future of the Venetian lagoon.

Furthermore, the internationally renowned photographer Gianni Berengo Gardin has also denounced the alarming Venetian situation with photographs he took between 2012 and 2014. An exhibition with some thirty works entitled “Venezia e le grandi navi” (Venice and Big Ships) was held at the Negozio Olivetti in Saint Mark’s Square (22 October 2015 - 10 January 2016). This exhibition was planned to be held at the Doge’s Palace, however the recently elected right-wing major of Venice has decided to forbid and censor it. This unhappy decision aroused several criticisms worldwide and ironically helped reinforce the important debate with reference to gigantic cruise ships transiting in the Venetian Lagoon. According to Maestro Berengo Gardin “photography should document reality and be a tool to change the world. These monsters visually plunder my Venice”, he says with a low and hoarse voice, “these photographs are scary and upsetting. They seem to be the result of a photomontage. It is hard to believe that they correspond to reality. But there is no trick, they are true”.

Venice and Venetians are not sinking. This splendid island and its inhabitants, although rare species in extinction, can still be saved from a tragic end and a Disneyland destiny, so much prophesied by pessimists. Venice and its lagoon are miraculous, a complicated and fragile natural, social and cultural system that needs to be preserved with compatible policies, meaningful actions and conscious tourism.

Photo: Calogero Cammalleri/Fabrica

Lipadusa. From Sea to Land

Lipadusa is a photo project about the identity of Lampedusa by Calogero Cammalleri. The images, published in a book, are also part of the collective exhibition “La Fabrica del Presente”, now on show at Museo di Roma in Trastevere (open until 24 January 2016).

Lampedusa is an island and a border territory with a hybrid identity: a crossroads where people with diverse life experiences encounter each other, generating new transcultural realities. Geographically closer to Africa, but politically still Italian, Lampedusa nowadays recalls the imaginary of migration and the tragedy of refugees. Cammalleri’s photographs depict the island’s most authentic and timeless character, its dreamlike and silent atmosphere. His prints evoke contradictory feelings, as a subtle sense of disorientation coexists with a familiar warmth.

This project strikes not only as a marvelously poetic and imaginative artwork but also as a powerful political message. Cammalleri landed at Lampedusa in 2013, in the aftermath of the tragedy of October 3, when 368 people died in the Sicilian Channel. The photographer embarked upon a personal inner journey investigating concepts such as displacement, identity and belonging. The starting point was his intimate life experience as an emigrant and his reunion with his homeland and its inhabitants, fellow travellers in his photographic exploration. In fact, Calogero Cammalleri is an Italian grown up in Germany, who went back to Sicily after seventeen years, in search of his roots. During his nine months’ stay on Lampedusa, from November 2013 to July 2014, he gained the trust of the islanders and became actively part of their daily life in the island. He portrayed fishermen, children, animals and landscapes: intense black and white photographs, often blurred, that communicate a timeless perception of an enchanted place.

Lipadusa is part of Sciabica, a project of slow journalism produced byFabrica in the wake of the tragedy of the 3 October 2013. After the front pages and cover stories of the reporters had ceased and Lampedusa was no longer breaking news, Sciabica started narrating the lives of the migrants and islanders of Lampedusa, writing about cohabitation, emergency and solidarity.

Photo: © Massimo Branca / Igor Marchesan

Inside Outside Under Bucharest

Isolab presents the photographic exhibition Inside Outside Under Bucharest by Massimo Branca and Igor Marchesan (Collettivo Fotosocial). The opening will be on Friday 18th December at 6.30 pm. Inside Outside Under Bucharest is the result of a long term photographic project, conducted with an anthropological slant. The photographers lived for two years with one of the most marginalised communities in Europe. The images on show depict the everyday life of hidden realities, as well as the fragility and unpredictability of human existence.

Branca and Marchesan document a complex reality, marked by profound material and emotional deprivation. Their photographs portray the Gara de Nord underground life without judging it. The aim is to create a bridge between different social spheres, enabling the audience to project their imagination and empathise with the feelings of people who found acceptance in a rejected community.

In the words of the photographers: “When we first visited their subterranean house in Bucharest city center, we never expected that, over time, we would become part of their family. A group of children aged up to forty years, they are the street tribe of Gara de Nord. Trained with punches, they have learned to growl in order to be heard. It’s hard to be kind and respected at the same time. Many of them, growing up without parents and in social exclusion, bear the marks of the early discovered drug addiction, disease and prison. Sometimes it seems they rush towards death on purpose and sadly someone has truly told me so. Yet, by themselves, they have learned the values of hospitality, sharing and fraternal bond. In search of affection and safety, those boys have given each other mutual support, gathering around a fatherly and authoritative figure. According to rules that can be easily misunderstood in the ‘civilized’ world, they founded a small community opposed to the society above ground. Underground tunnels have turned into shelters for the outcasts, but at the same time they ended up reinforcing their marginalized condition and strengthening their self­perception of excluded. Integration with the outside world has become hard to even “consider” ”.

Massimo Branca is an independent photographer and anthropologist. He is the co­founder of Collettivo Fotosocial, an association that uses visual storytelling to produce positive social change. Igor Marchesan is a photographer influenced by his Romanian roots, he is interested in recounting the stories that marked his life through images.

Photo: Hrair Sarkissian, Homesick, 2014

Hrair Sarkissian. Back to the future

“I try to engage the viewer into a more profound reading of what lies behind the surface of the image, thereby re-evaluating larger historical or social narratives.”

Hrair Sarkissian

The first solo show in Italy by Armenian-Syrian photographer Hrair Sarkissian, curated by Filippo Maggia, opens Thursday 26 November 2015 at Fondazione Carispezia.

The exhibition features 86 photographs and a video focusing on the themes of the uncertainty of the future and of social, political, religious and cultural identity. Hrair Sarkissian, part of the Armenian Pavilion winner of the Golden Lion for best national participation in the 56th Venice Biennale, reconsiders past and present symbols of the history of Armenia, Egypt and Syria. The artist invites the viewer to go beyond the immediacy of the photograph, that can ascend to the role of witness of time. Sarkissian tells human stories “that are not immediately visible on the surface” using a 4×5 analogue camera and printing large formats. Main themes of his production are: the relationship between individuals, history and the past; memory and identity of places and the transformations they may undergo in time.

In his work, ‘Homesick’ (2014), for example, Hrair Sarkissian recreated and destroyed a model of the building in Damascus where his parents are still living. The same apartment were he grew up and lived until he left Syria. This is not only a house, he states, but the place where he feels he belongs, “a container for his memories, and a place for his family’s collective identity”. Through his artwork, a plausible story is imagined and constructed, reflecting on the consequences and trying to regain control over a fearful situation.

Another interesting photo project on show is “Sarkissian Photo Center and My Father & I” (2010), that consists of a series of images of the family’s photography studio in Damascus and portraits of the artist, and of his father. Hrair’s father owned and worked in the first photographic colour laboratory in Syria, where his son learned about photography techniques before deciding to find his own path abroad as an artist. This artwork documents the photo center before its closure, keeping alive its memory through a “last portrait session” series displayed along with black and white old portraits.

Photo: Aboubacar Traoré, Inch’Allah, 2015

10th Bamako Encounters, African Biennale of Photography

The 10th Bamako Encounters, African Biennale of Photography, will take place from 31 October to 31 December 2015. The Bamako Encounters provide an important platform for photographers in Africa and the diaspora, displaying their work to an international public. After a four-year break, due to events in Mali, the Bamako Encounters are back with a powerful programme curated by the outstanding Artistic Director Bisi Silva, supported by her Associate Exhibition Curators Antawan I. Byrd andYves Chatap. The theme chosen for this edition is Telling Time:participating artists are invited to reflect on the notion of time as a means of rethinking the past, discussing the present, and imagining the future. Conventional interpretations of time are reframed using photography, film, video and animation. As a result, perspective on time are fragmented and plural, offering new points of view and original experiences.

“The concept of time in Africa has been the subject of popular and philosophical debates concerning political and technological belatedness, questions of colonial temporalities characterised by their links with the rise of capitalism, as well as the interventions made by liberation movements in radically deconstructing colonial time through projects of freedom, independence, and the development of civic identity. Yet the selected artists position these debates and histories as incomplete and ongoing, intervening through topical investigations on recent sociopolitical conflict (…) and through thematic studies of built environments (…)”, says the introductory statement of the curators.

In addition to the central international exhibition Telling Time, which features the work of 26 photographers and 13 video artists from across Africa and the Diaspora, including special homage presentations of Malian artist Bakary Diallo and South African artist Thabiso Sekgala, the biennale offers an ambitious programme of monographic and thematic exhibitions.

Through monographic exhibitions, the biennale presents a filmic work by South African artist William Kentridge that mediates on time and transmission of knowledge; works by Syrian/Armenian artist Hrair Sarkissian, whose videos and photography explore experiences of displacement, history and memory; and a survey of work by the Nigerian photographer J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, which chronicles the visual representation of post-colonial subjectivity and nationalism in Nigeria. The “Lusophone Focus” series is anchored by a monographic exhibition of Brazilian artist Ayrson Heráclito, whose powerful performances, video, and photography work offers incisive investigations of the African presence in Brazil. This programme includes the film exhibition Ilha de São Jorge, curated by Beyond Entropy Africa, and a participatory art project by Lanchonete.org (consisting of creatives Todd Lanier Lester, Thiago Correia Gonçalves, and Jaime Lauriano) that uses food and photography to question the intertwined cultural histories of Brazil and West Africa.

The biennale’s thematic exhibitions Tu M’aimes, Against Time: The Tierney Fellowship Project, To The Future and Back and 1384 Days Wide similarly emphasize questions of temporality and storytelling through explorations of the body, democracy, and politics across geographic and social contexts.

The problem of local engagement challenges the staging and sustainability of biennales across the world, and offers an important context for the curators’ response to the cultural setbacks Mali has experienced following threats to the country’s political sovereignty since 2012. Through its “Mali Focus” programme, the curatorial team critically examines the biennale’s 20-year history through a presentation of archival documents and objects in the exhibition [Re]generations, while the “Mali Jaw” project consists of 10 mini-exhibitions across Bamako that present the archives of photography studios within their immediate communities. The exhibition En Connexion… by Malian curator Chab Touré assesses local developments in contemporary photography by introducing a new generation of Malian photographers, while an ambitious pedagogy programme aims to engage up to 100 schools across Bamako.

An important objective of the biennale is to provide a platform for countries with an emerging photographic practice. This is done through presentation of workshops that have taken places during the inter-biennale period. This year we present new works from emerging photographic platforms in Algeria through an exhibition organised by Bruno Boudjelal, and the work of young Nigeriens inspired by the photographs of Niamey nightlife of the 1970s by Philippe Koudjina Ayi. Koudjina’s work will be presented alongside the work contemporary Nigerien photographers in an exhibition curated by Philippe Guionie.

Photo: Alice Smeets, The Getto Tarot , IV of Machetes

LagosPhoto Festival 2015: Designing Futures

“Making a plan is designing your future, crossing your fingers, praying… a pony tail, a choreography, the shape of countries like Mali.”

Cristina De Middel, LagosPhoto Curator

LagosPhoto is the first and only international arts festival of photography in Nigeria. The theme of this sixth edition is Designing Futures. The Festival opens on 24 October and will last until 27 November. LagosPhoto presents photography as it is embodied in the exploration of historical and contemporary issues, the promotion of social programmes, and the reclaiming of public spaces. LagosPhoto 2015 will feature thirty-five photographers spanning eighteen countries.

LagosPhoto Festival Designing Futures positions the relationships between African design, the design of Africa and our understanding of how we may design Africa, as the platform to discuss our past, present and future intentions. With history, circumstance and fantasy as significant pointers of the lens-based projects exhibited, Designing Futures highlights crucial aspects of ‘making’ that come into play in African signs and design dialogues.

The making of image, identity, desire, ecology, and even culture are explored through advertising, textiles, portraiture, factual and conceptual photography; these offer tangible and esoteric backdrops to how we process, navigate and inhabit the realms of a future Africa.

LagosPhoto aims to provide a platform for the development and education of contemporary photography in Africa by establishing mentorships and cross-cultural collaborations with local and international artists. In a month long programme, events include exhibitions, workshops, artist presentations, discussions, screenings, and large scale outdoor installations in congested public spaces in Lagos.

LagosPhoto opens to the public on October 24th, 2015 at Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos. Satellite exhibition venues in arts and cultural spaces throughout the city extend to Omenka Gallery, Africans Artists’ Foundation, Stranger Lagos, Goethe-Institut, Nimbus Gallery, Alara Concept Store, A White Space Gallery, Yaba Tech, Quintessence. Outdoor exhibitions in public spaces in Lagos include Muri Okunola Park, Falomo Roundabout (Ikoyi), Awojobi Park (Onike), and Freedom Park.

Photo: Rena Effendi, Felicia Owlboy, age 19, at her aunt Jada's home in St. Michaels. The tattoo on her arm is dedicated to her father who hung himself. Spirit Lake Native American Reservation in North Dakota, 2013.

PRISMA Human Rights Photo Contest

PRISMA was officially launched during the Venice Art Biennale opening with Alfredo Jaar as special guest, at My Art Guides: Venice Meeting Point.
The photo contest is open from May 1 and will accept submissions through July 6 2015. Photographers, professional and amateur, from any part of the world are invited to submit their work. The theme of 2015 is “Freedom”.

The members of the jury are Rena Effendi, internationally renowned Azerbaijani photographer; Isabel Gattiker, General and Programme Director of the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva; Almir Koldzic, Co- Founder and Co-Director of Counterpoints Arts, organisation comprising creative arts and cultural projects exploring refugee and migrant experiences; Azu Nwagbogu, Director of the Lagos Photo Festival and of the African Artists Foundation; and Alberto Prina, photojournalist and Founder of the Gruppo Fotografico Progetto Immagine and of the Festival of Ethical Photography.

The selected images will be displayed, along with photographs by the special guest photographer Rena Effendi, in an exhibition in Venice, at the Monastery of San Nicolò, the premises of the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC) from 11 September 2015, during the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, to the 11 October 2015. The day of the opening of the exhibition will be marked by a special event with talks on the theme “Freedom” and the connection between art, photography, cultural production, media and human rights.

The value of Freedom is at the very core of the concept of human rights: freedom from oppression, freedom of speech and belief, freedom of movement, freedom from fear, freedom of thought and freedom of opinion. The images submitted for the photo competition should illustrate the relevance of “Freedom” as a fundamental human right and the importance of defending it.

PRISMA aims at being not only a photographic contest but also to become an annual event for photography on human rights worldwide. PRISMA’s purpose is to create a network of artists, intellectuals and professionals interested in strengthening the protection of human rights and the promotion of democracy and peace. Furthermore, the goal of PRISMA is to complement academic research with other media of knowledge, such as photography, to reach a wider international public and foster a better understanding of human rights issues and their protection.

For more detailed information please visit www.prismaphotocontest.com

Photo: © Simona Pampallona

Infinito a photographic project by Alice Rohrwacher and Simona Pampallona

Infinito is a photographic project by Alice Rohrwacher and Simona Pampallona inspired by an idea of the Italian writer Alessandro Baricco. The project, presented at the Eataly Pavilion at Milan EXPO, aims at representing the twenty Italian regions through as many images taken in one of the most intimate spaces: the bedroom.

This photographic work shows a plurality of realities, unveiling deep feelings of homeness coupled with an oneiric atmosphere. Each image is combined with a caption that recounts an aspect of the region, giving a specific information. The public, for example, learns that in the past fifteen years the number of big ships arriving in Venice have increased threefold reaching 600 hundred arrivals per year. Despite its delicate ecosystem and its beautiful fragility, Venice is the first home port for gigantic cruise ships in the Mediterranean Sea.

Another image reminds us of the consequences of the 2009 earthquake in Abruzzo, where more than 22 thousand people are still waiting to go back to their homes. However, there are also some good news, such as the one that Italy is everyday more beautifully plural, with more than 250 mixed marriages celebrated in the province of Trento.

After each caption there is a line of the renown Italian poet, Giacomo Leopardi, translated into the dialect of each region: E il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare (And sweet to me is shipwreck in this sea).

Photo: Billie Zangewa, Body Talk, Courtesy of WIELS

Body Talk: African Feminism, Sexuality and the Body

“[...] the function of art is to do more than tell it like it is — it's to imagine what is possible.” Bell Hooks

The contemporary art world is every day more interested and influenced by African art. Touria el Glaoui, director of the Contemporary African Art Fair 1:54 in London, states that international collectors are taking conscience of the extraordinary diversity and quality of the African artistic creativity. This year, for the first time, the Biennale of Venice will have an African artistic director, Okwui Enwezor, who has always pushed African and diaspora artists to the foreground. It is clear that the Eurocentric and Western-centric art world is facing nowadays multiple challenges on different fronts.

In this context Wiels presents a group exhibition bringing together six women artists from Africa using their body as a tool, a representation or a field of investigation. The central issues of this exhibition, curated by Koyo Kouoh, are feminism, sexuality and the body. The relationship between African women and the use of their bodies as a meaningful and powerful symbol is very strong.

An influential movement of African - and black - feminism coupled with specific artistic practices has been developing in the latest decades and has its historic roots in the Egyptian Feminist Union (1923), the first African feminist movement, led by Huda Sha’rawi. This feminism, or womanism - as defined by African-American author Alice Walker - is at the base of the work of the six artists participating to this exhibition. They re-explore, reintegrate and reincarnate the body through a multitude of media including performance, painting, photography, video, film and installation. In their works, historical and political figures are referenced and past and present bodies are reanimated.

Important themes explored by the artists are: challenging patriarchal structures; imagining alternative worlds as a critical response to the postcolonial existential condition; examining how the contemporary human experience is influenced by constructed history, past and present violence, colonialism, family and sexuality; and unveiling prejudices and racism deeply rooted in contemporary societies.

Body Talk uncovers the unity of purpose that connects the six artists in their subjectivity and diversity of forms and answers.

Curator: Koyo Kouoh, assisted by Eva Barois De Caevel (RAW Material Company, Dakar) Coordinating curator: Caroline Dumalin (WIELS)

Artists:Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Marcia Kure, Miriam Syowia Kyambi, Valérie Oka, Tracey Rose, Billie Zangewa

Victoria Combalía: Dora Maar. Despite Picasso

An enchanting exhibition of photographs by Dora Maar, curated by Victoria Combalía, is held until the 14th of July at Palazzo Fortuny, in Venice. This is not only the first exhibition by Dora Maar in Italy, but it also sheds new light on the impressive work of a woman of singular talent. Often remembered mainly for her passionate relation with Picasso, Dora Maar was also an extraordinary artist and a great photographer. Victoria Combalía recently published an interesting book entitled Dora Maar. Más allá de Picasso as a result of more than twenty years of research work and interviews.

The curator states that “Palazzo Fortuny is the perfect location to show and promote the work of this multi-faceted artist, an enigmatic sphinx often unfairly remembered only for her relationship with one of the most prominent artist of our age”. Dora Maar. Despite Picasso, is the perfect title to express the important message that the curator wants to communicate to the public of the exhibition: Dora Maar’s value stands on the extraordinariness of a woman with a special sensitivity and an incredible talent, an outstanding photographer, an important member of the Surrealist group, and a political activist fighting for the rights of the oppressed people. She was also the lover of Pablo Picasso and George Bataille, and friend of other prominent artists and intellectuals such as Paul Éluard, the brothers Jacques and Pierre Prévert, Luis Buñuel, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, Balthus, Lucian Freud and André Breton.

In 1945, she had a psychological crisis and started psychoanalytic treatment with Jacques Lacan. After being abandoned by Picasso, she devoted herself mainly to painting and religion. Combalía had the opportunity to interview Dora Maar by phone in 1993, and tells: “Although the great suffering she had been through, I believe that she had no hard feelings against Picasso. She admired his work. She was an enigmatic and tormented personality, but also a very strong woman”.

Dora Maar (Paris, 1907-1997) was the daughter of a famous Croatian architect and a French woman. She grew up in both Buenos Aires and Paris. She frequented the École et Ateliers D’Arts Décoratifs and the Académie André Lhote before being persuaded, by critic Marcel Zahar, to study photography at the École de Photographie de la Ville de Paris. Her photographic career was short, but intense: from 1931 to 1937. In 1930 she began to work as an assistant to Harry Ossip Meerson, in whose studio she met Brassaï, and then she formed a partnership with Pierre Kéfer.

In her photographic works, Dora Maar shows a great interest in the marginal fringes of society, in the world of childhood, and in daily street life. Her favourite themes were: looks and glances, blindness and eyes closed in trance, and sleep. In this, she was probably influenced by the Surrealist leitmotiv of the “eyes closed”. Closing the eyes is a way of closing the doors to the outside world and being able to enter the unconscious and oneiric sphere of being, as expressed by André Breton in his ‘Le judgment originel’.

Dora Maar’s exhibition at Palazzo Fortuny is comprised of over 100 works, including some unpublished works of great interest.

Genesis: a celebration of the stunning mosaic of nature in all its unspoiled grandeur

“As well as displaying the beauty of nature, Genesis is a call to arms. We cannot continue polluting our soil, water and air. We must act now to preserve unspoiled land and seascapes and protect the natural sanctuaries of ancient peoples and animals. And we can go further: we can try to reverse the damage we have done.” Lélia Wanick Salgado & Sebastião Salgado

Imagine turning back the clock “to the volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that shaped the Earth; to the air, water and fire that gave birth to life”.Genesis is a photographic project aspiring to show and to share the wonders of planet Earth: a journey to remote regions, from the polar circles and tropical forests, to solitary islands and wide deserts. Salgadoexamines the coexistence of nature and human beings, and the concept of ecological balance that seems to be lost forever in our societies. His earlier projects, such as: “Workers” and “Migration”, show images of a massacred world. They depict sufferance, violence and brutality, as well as human kind’s great courage and resistance.

After the completion of these projects he “had lost faith in the future of humanity”. Genesis seems to express a cathartic need to rediscover and promote the enchanting beauty of nature and its grandeur. The title has nothing to do with religion, but it refers to a concept of harmonic coexistence and to the origins of the Earth.

For Salgado photography is not about militancy, activism or work, it is purely about life. He describes Genesis as one of his “life projects”, more than as a “photographic project”: eight years of work, including a preparation period, 32 trips to distant corners of the globe and post-production. Organisation is fundamental, he states, for practical purposes but also, and more importantly, for psychological reasons.

Lélia Wanick Salgado, wife and partner of Sebastião Salgado throughout all his projects, looking at one of the most impressive photographs tells us that, “we have to get off our pedestal and humbly recognise that we are not superior beings. We are part of nature. Therefore, we have to generate respect for nature among all human beings”, she states, “and empower people in order to change our perception of nature and engage with ecological activism”.

The exhibition Genesis is held at the Casa dei Tre Oci, a splendid example of early 20th-century Venetian architecture, designed by the artist Mario De Maria (Marius Pictor) and built in 1913. Genesis is divided into five geographical sections: the South of the planet, Africa, natural sanctuaries, the North of the planet, and Amazonia.

After Rome, London, Toronto and Rio de Janeiro, the Genesis exhibition will be held in France, the United States of America and other locations worldwide.

Interview with Jorge Pineda

What is your concept of art? When did your passion for art begin?

The term “art” has been defined and redefined: the concept of art has always been at the center of reflection. As far as I am concerned, art is something very generic, a way of representing the world. Art is just this, a way of expressing what we experience and the fundamental questions that lie between life and death; two polarities present in everybody’s life.

I cannot tell exactly when I consciously encountered art for the first time in my life, but I can say that since I was very little I had a strong relationship with art. I was lucky because as a child, my mother (a professor) soon recognized my interests and she always fostered this propensity towards the arts.

What is your relationship to the generation of artists from the ‘80s and how did they influence your work along with the recent history of Dominican art?

This is a very important and complex issue because, regrettably, our art historians give very little attention to this topic. The ‘80s was a problematic period for Dominican artists. It was difficult to find galleries to present and promote their work. Together, as an artist collective, we decided to start a project, the Colectivo Generación 80 (80 Generation Collective), in order to show our work in new spaces.

This Colectivo was comprised of 100 artists who joined together for pragmatic reasons rather than for sharing values or a common philosophy. We had practical needs and wanted to improve our opportunities of working in the arts. Given the plurality of artists involved in this project, it was impossible to have a common conceptual framework. However, some of the artists shared points of view and also started working together. We finally managed to obtain some results: the Colectivo even opened its own gallery.

Now you are part of a new collective, the Quinta Pata. Could you tell us more about it?

The Quinta Pata represented the Dominican Republic at the Venice Biennale this year and is formed by Pascal Meccariello, Raquel Paiewonsky, Belkis Ramírez and myself. We have known each for a long time and decided to get together to raise our visibility. We wanted to achieve what is said in an African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This is our philosophy. We believe in the power of the group.

Quinta Pata has exhibited works in Mexico, Buenos Aires, Lima, Miami, Santo Domingo, the Bienal de la Havana, the Bienal de Fin del Mundo and the Venice Biennale. We have a project running at the end of this year and another exhibition in Santo Domingo in March 2014.

Does your art have a specific social dimension?

I am very affected by the social reality that surrounds me. Every day I have to deal with the roughness of a society affected by serious social problems, particularly concerning children and elderly people. My sensitivity to these issues is manifested in my art, somehow, in an unconscious way. My art does not have an explicit message about how things should be. I try to play the role of a photographer who captures an image and obliges the public to think about it. Maybe spectators will feel the responsibility of doing something to change things for the better. I believe that even the smallest thought of change in someone’s mind is already an important achievement.

What are you presenting in Miami?

Recently, I have been focusing on the relationship between art and power. Power can deeply affect art and influence the artists’ creative process. The work I will present in Miami is about the 15 minutes of world-fame that everyone would inevitably experience, according to Andy Warhol. In Miami, 136 portraits of great artists will be for sale (as in an auction) and each of them will be shown several times for 15 minutes in turn. If someone buys them, they will not be shown again. This work is about how the art industry with its fairs, biennials, galleries and journals is capable of corrupting the honesty and creativity of the artist.

Petrit Halilaj: Poisoned by men in need of some love

Petrit Halilaj‘s largest solo show to date opened at Wiels Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels. Poisoned by men in need of some love is the title of the incredibly powerful installation curated by Elena Filipovic. It includes a three-part film, drawings, and hand-sculpted copies of taxidermy animals that used to be displayed in the Museum of National History in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina. This exhibition is the result of a long project in which Halilaj has been involved for years.

The Museum of Natural History had a collection of more than 1,800 individual stuffed animals of various species gathered between 1951 and 1971, during Tito’s most active years of rule. After the fall of Communism and the outbreak of ethnic conflict, new priorities emerged. In 2001 the entire animal collection was removed and stored in hidden rooms, while their space was used to display folk tradition and heritage.

Halilaj managed to have the permission to pull down the wall behind which the animals were stored and secretly filmed the whole process. While watching the video we perceive a tense atmosphere. The ambivalent feelings of the Museum’s staff, people who have been working there for several years, clearly emerge: tension, shame and curiosity. In the hidden cellar-like storage facilities all stuffed animals are found in terrible conditions.

Inspired by these remains and by some old images, Halilaj, over the last two months, has recreated through his sculptures the taxidermy animals. The material he uses is a very rough one, a mix of earth and animal excrement, partly from Kosovo. The choice of the material is connected with the sculptures’ history. Halilaj recreates three-dimensional animals, gives them a new life while simultaneously communicating, ironically and metaphorically, his disagreement with the history behind them. His art provides them a different context, another way of being displayed. This aim is connected with the artists’ feeling of being part of a society reinventing itself after the war and of a new generation in Kosovo who wants to shape the present and the future.

Trash objects, like old showcases from the Museum of Natural History, are also part of the installation and find a new existence in contemporary art. What fascinates Petrit Halilaj, he says, is to find a poetic side, and convey a sense of levity that enables the public to watch the installation and discuss about it. The sculptures, drawings and old museum objects provoke, on the one hand, uncanny old feelings connected to war, forced exile and loss but also, on the other hand, the perception of new possible realities, imaginary dimensions and utopian places.

Petrit Halilaj was born in Kostërrc (Skenderaj-Kosovo) in 1986. He lives and works in Berlin, Kosovo and Mantova. Recent solo exhibitions: Kosovo Pavillion, Venice Biennale, curated by Kathrin Rhomberg, commissioned by Erzen Shkololli, Arsenale, Venice (2013); “Who does the earth belong to while painting the wind?!” curated by Giovanni Carmine, Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, St. Gallen (2012); Petrit Halilaj, Kunstraum Innsbruck, curated by Veit Loers (2011); Statement, Art Basel solo presentation, with Chert, Berlin (2011); “Back to the Future”, curated by Albert Heta, Stacion, Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, Kosovo (2009). Petrit Halilaj, solo exhibition, Chert, Berlin (2009).

Zinneke Parade, 19th May 2012, Désordre / Wanorde “Ruina is the Arabic word for chaos. On va faire la ruina is an expression youths in Brussels use to mean we’re going to have some fun”.  (Read article) Zinneke is about fun, a very constructive and important type of fun coupled with a strong commitment. Zinneke is first of all a place of encounter, dialogue, creativity, feast and experimentation to celebrate the fluidity and the dynamism of Brussels city, as the waters of its small river, the Senne/Zenne. The carnivalesque parade, held every other spring since 2000, is the final expression of a project to which local organisations, institutions, collectives, individual committees and people take part for several months. (Interview in Dutch with Myriam Stoffen) A framework in which people can build something together is created to overcome all type of walls, borders and mental barriers between persons, neighbourhoods, social and cultural groups.

Humans: A Migrant Specie