29 May-2 August 2009
FotoGrafia. Rome’s International Festival 8th edition
Declinations of Joy. Taking photographs: visions and portrayals

Don McCullin ©

The eighth edition's theme, “Declinations of Joy. Taking photographs, visions and portrayals”, arises from a desire to regain possession of photography as action and content, as well as the happiness and the emotions this generates and that at times are lost between the drama of reportage and the glamour of fashion photography.

This year the Festival presents a new format with its heart at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni which hosts the official exhibitions and events. The Festival also includes the traditional Circuit of art galleries and bookshops which is more concentrated and presents even more qualitative work, thanks to the all operators have been invited to create one single exhibition for the festival.

The artists present include Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi, for the second time in Italy after the exhibition in Milan in 2006. Don McCullin returns presenting a preview of his most recent work entitled “Roman Frontiers”, dedicated to testimonies of the Roman empire at its most extreme boundaries. Nan Goldin, winner of the 2007 Hasselblad Award, who in addition to meeting viewers will present "Heartbeat", a video installation in which four synchronised screens show photographs of friends, lovers and borderline scenes from life, accompanied by an original soundtrack by the English composer Sir Jon Tavener, entitled “Prayer of the Heart”.

Furthermore, a series of documentaries on the maestros of Italian photography, including Ferdinando Scianna who will be present to attend an encounter with the public. The foreign Academies present slideshows by the best contemporary photographers in their respective countries. A meeting with Euvgen Bavcar, a sightless artist, who will talk to journalist Emanuela Audisio about the subject “Photography, the joy of a hostage of the shadows”, preceded by a documentary and a selection of his images. This is the artist's first visit to Italy and this event will include an exhibition within the framework of the ‘Circuit', at the B>Gallery, (a project curated by Obiettivo Granieri).

Finally the programme includes a series of meetings with curators, photo-editors and photographers, among them Davide Monteleone and Alessandra Mauro, Eva Frapiccini, Eric Kessel, Bruno di Marino, Christian Sinibaldi, Juliana Beasley and Melanie Mc Worther from Photoeye.

During this Festival opportunities to take part playing a leading role are many. Among them, as part of the Circuit, the project entitled “Dimensione massima 10x12” organised by 3/3 and Camera Oscura, inviting everyone to send a photograph telling intimate and daily stories, with a format no larger than 10x12 cm, then shown in an exhibition at the Pigneto opening on June 4th. There is also "1x1000" at the Sala uno, an exhibition for which a thousand photographers have been asked to send an image portraying Joy.
One new experience in this sense is entitled “in between – 60 hours in Rome”, in cooperation with the Tuscan Photographic Workshop. There is a selection open to everyone, at the end of which 40 photographers will be chosen to portray 60 hours in Rome (Friday May 29th-Sunday May 31st). This project will be concentrated on the area between the Ring Road and the Railway Line, an area in which the monumental merges with construction speculation, where the working-class suburbs change thanks to the arrival of students and immigrants and the soul of the city is more powerfully perceived. The result will be an event with screenings of 10 images by each artist on June 6th.

Davide Monteleone ©

FotoGrafia 2009 also presents the recent project by Giorgio Barrera, "Through the Window", a reflection on European identity starting with the normality of people's lives, portrayed from the exterior of their homes, as if observed through a window. An exhibition created in a dark space with coloured light-boxes that thanks to detectors light-up as people walk by, just like many windows in the night. This project won last year's edition of the FotoGrafia – Baume & Mercier International Award, and the winner of the third edition will be announced during the Festival. Confirming Baume & Mercier's increasing commitment to photography, the programme also includes the exhibition “The Photographer” by Gerard Rancinan, 23 portraits of the greatest living photographers, already successfully shown at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

This year's main exhibition is a collective by over 30 photographers, and entitled Joy, entirely created with screenings and videos in a fully immersive journey of visual and sound references. This exhibition is the result of a call for proposals published online and inviting photographers to present original work linked to this subject.

The group of exhibitions for FotoGrafia 2009 at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, ends with the exhibition entitled “From the soul to the body. The Russian Caucasus” by Davide Monteleone. This is a project that in 2008 allowed this artists to win the first edition of the FotoGrafia-Libro Award, the Festival's section devoted to the presentation of the best photographic book published in the course of the previous year and that this year too will be held with dozens of new publications.

Info
FotoGrafia – Rome's International Festival;
May 29th – August 2nd 2009 Palazzo delle Esposizioni
Top Floor – Admission € 10, reduced € 7,50;
Sala della Fontana – Admission free of charge;
Events at Sala Auditorium – Admission free of charge
Letture Portfolio – Enrolement € 10 euro for each participation with a maximum of 6 readings.
Info line 06.70473525
www.fotografiafestival.it