European Photography 2024, the red thread linking man and nature
Opening in Reggio Emilia until 9 June, the new edition of the festival, which this year proposes a look at the 'global body', a broad dimension in which boundaries between nature and man dissolve, up to the clouds
2' min read
2' min read
Fotografia Europea 2024, gives us a great gift: it frees us from the now 'necessary' guilt towards nature, imagining new narratives and new directions to take.
The artistic directors of Fotografia Europe 2024, Tim Clark, Water Guadagnini and Luce Lebart, have made a different reflection on the theme of nature, proposing a broader perspective, therefore, without forgetting the centrality of the environmental issue, overcoming the emphasis on the problematic nature-man relationship to show its interdependence and biunivity, starting from the reflection of the essayist Daisy Hildyard in her book The second body, 2018, according to which all living beings are interconnected, forming a 'global body', in which man is part of nature, part of a larger organism, and from the Heraclitean vision that gives the title to the kermesse, according to which Nature loves to hide, and often conceals its essence, but it is there.
St. Peter's Cloisters
Starting from inside the Chiostri di San Pietro, the heart of the festival, a project of ten exhibitions, including the collective Sky Album, 250 years of capturing clouds in which the fascination of clouds in the personal and collective imagination is evident. Immense was the production of images thanks to the technical evolution of exposure times that made it possible to capture their incredible mutability. Not too far away from the clouds, in extreme and secret places, in an immaterial dimension, Lisa Barnard pushes herself who, with An Act of Faith: Bi t coin and the speculative Bubble, leads a reflection on the environmental effort required to create bitcoins.
In the central corridor of the cloisters, Natalya Saprunova's project, Permafrost, recounts in huge panels the lives of the populations living in the far north of the Asian continent and their concern about the risks of the consequences of industrialisation. Palazzo Magnani, the headquarters of the festival's promoting foundation, hosts Mediations. The first retrospective ever presented in Italy of the American photographer Susan Meiselas, known above all for her work in conflict zones in Central America. Many other venues for the festival exhibitions and many related events (www.fotografiaeuropea.it).Shops, restaurants, studios, courtyards and private homes, historical sites, art galleries welcome the festival through the project Circuito Off that will culminate on 4 May when the winner of the Max Spreafico prize will be announced, with a solo exhibition at the 2025 edition of Fotografia Europea as a prize.
European Photography 2024, 19th edition, Nature loves to hide, curated by Tim Clark, Water Guadagnini and Luce Lebart, Reggio Emilia, until 9 June
