Davide Monteleone and the responsibilities of a West that would like to be green
The photos of the Deloitte Photo Grant winner are on display at Mudec in Milan until 15 December with free admission
3' min read
3' min read
Davide Monteleone's photos leave an indelible mark, just as indelible are the marks on the land that years and years of exploitation in search of rare earths have produced on vast regions of the planet. Powerful images his, with their calibrated geometries, condensed into a bare and highly personal aesthetic, of great impact. It is therefore not surprising that among the 20 photographers nominated for the Reporting category, his project "Critical Minerals - Geography of Energy" won the Deloitte 2024 Photo Grant.
The theme of the competition the word 'Possibilities' conveyed a reflection on the power of choices that each of us can make, individually and as part of society and humanity as a whole.
Monteleone's project, with a careful eye and a good dose of disenchantment, narrates - with features that are denunciatory and yet at times even lyrically intimate in their almost Rothkian hues - the transformations of the global energy scene, as well as the human one, in the sign of renewable sources. His exploration, without wishing to be in any way apodictic, highlights with raw determination the interweaving of narratives, and thus contradictions, which are geopolitical, social and environmental, emerging from the growing demand for minerals essential for renewable energies. The question underlying his finely descriptive work is about who ultimately pays, and not only in economic and environmental terms, for our albeit ethically correct demand for more or less green energy?
And his work, which has ranged from Nigeria to Chile and Indonesia, without claiming to provide easy answers, forcefully poses inescapable questions to the richer West and planetary elites.
Guido Borsani, Chairman Deloitte Foundation
"The international jury, of which I was a member, saw a great convergence in choosing Davide Monteleone's work, not only for the great aesthetic quality of the images he proposed, but because at the basis of his work is this theme, this reflection
