Artist
Francesca Catastini
Francesca Catastini (Lucca, 1982) is an author based in Tuscany. She holds an MA in Photography and Visual Design from NABA Academy in Milan.
In 2016 her book "The Modern Spirit Is Vivisective” won the ViennaPhotoBookAward. Her work has been presented and exhibited internationally, including Plat(t)form 2017, Fotomuseum Winterthur; Fotografia Europea, Reggio Emilia; Benaki Museum, Athens; Noorderlicht Photofestival, Groningen; Emerging Talents, MACRO Factory, Rome; Festival Circulations, CENTQUATRE-PARIS, Paris; and Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome.
Her latest work Petrus, published by Kehrer Verlag, reflects on a certain rhetoric of masculinity in Western culture. Through a cynical, tender and arbitrary analysis of what probably cannot be sliced and diced Francesca Catastini plays with archetypes and images considering the way they sculpt ourselves and shape our views. Looking for subtle discrepancies her images go beyond their figurative meaning in order to activate new analogies and connotations.
Petrus
Is Petrus a dance? Is it a choreography? Is it a minuet (which of course is a contradiction because a minuet needs two. But who says that for an artist the other can not be a subject, a theme or a fascination?). At least Petrus it is a highly concentrated and very delicate chain of steps sideways. After the sidestep a brief reorientation, a gracious gesture towards the other and another step sideways. The gestures are kept in memory.
One circle completed, one step backwards and another circle is begun, concentric. The sidesteps are smaller or wider, depending on the time the new circle should take, how long the glances should be, how many facets of the other should be scrutinised and how intensely. Actually, the minuet is strange. One moving delicately, the other staying where the dance started, diplomatically watching his (Petrus is probably a man) shoes, if shoes there are.
Stepping backwards and forwards between the circles. Choosing the distance to the other, playing with it. Attracting the other, sending him off, but he can not move anyway, he can not escape through the circular movements. He is caught by being looked at.
At first, the more a circle is distant, the more sidesteps can be taken, the more facets can be observed. But from a certain distance on things are getting less precise. So back inwards. Or back and forth. Distance becomes matter, material, the width of the steps sideways and the length of the ones back and forth become form as much as the the glances at the other and the gestures that follow the glances. Steps, glances and gestures become a partitura… at first circular, then unfolding linear…
Veit Stratmann
Domenico Camarda (La Spezia, 1990) is an Italian artist.
http://www.domenicocamarda.com
Born in La Spezia in 1990, after his bachelor’s degree in Communication at the University of Bologna, he attended an MA in Photography and Visual Design at NABA/Forma in Milan. In the autumn of 2014 he worked at Pierre Von Kleist Editions, and Pedro Alfacinha Gallery, both based in Lisbon. During this experience he learned and deepen his interest in author photography and art publishing.
In 2015, he lived and worked in London for Amelia Troubridge, as assistant photographer, curating the editing and the layout of her last publications. He currently lives in Turin where, after having collaborated for MeMo Mag, he works as freelancer.
Camarda’s artistic practice focuses on and explores themes such as the construction of identity, and collective phenomena that affect and define the lives of each single individual. Creating a series of dreamlike and suggestive images, he wants to ask questions and trigger reflections, rather than giving simple answers.
Francesca Catastini (Lucca,1982) is an Italian artist.
She holds an MA in Photography and Visual Design from the New Academy for Fine Arts in Milan.
Her work is mainly about combining: images with images, texts, or other objects, in a no-ladder like interaction, aiming at transcending the idea of separation, in order to experience different levels of analogies. People are generally attracted by the challenge of interpreting the evidence, but our understanding of the pure origin of images is often vague exactly as ambiguous is the knowledge we have about the derivation of many words. What fascinates Catastini the most is exactly this exercise of the mind, which aims at “filling a gap”, drawing from our culture, knowledge, and past experiences. She is attracted by the connection between optical and apical perception. Unlike touch, vision often implies a sort of distance and it represents the sense which is more suitable for abstracting things. In 2016 her book "The Modern Spirit Is Vivisective” won the ViennaPhotoBookAward. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including Plat(t)form 2017, Fotomuseum Winterthur; Fotografia Europea, Reggio Emilia and other institutions.
Paolo Ciregia (1987, Italy) is an Italian artist.
After experience as a reporter at the forefront of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in the last five years his artistic research has been focused on Ukraine context, manipulating and reworking his personal archive in a new way. Investigating and deconstructing both archives symbols and language, Ciregia aims to reveal the atrocities behind the war, destroying the propaganda patina through installations and sculptures. His work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions. Among the major prizes are Winner of Talent FOAM Amsterdam 2016, Winner of “LOOP, Giovane Fotografia Italiana”, Festival Fotografia Europea 2017, “Honorable jury Mention” at Premio Francesco Fabbri 2016, TU35 at the Museo Pecci in Prato 2017, Winner of Leica Talent 2012
Irene Fenara (Bologna, 1990) is an Italian artist.
https://irenefenara.squarespace.com/
Her research focuses on the way of seeing and practicing observation on images. She reflects on linguistic devices and she uses optical and electronic instruments of various kinds, from Polaroid to surveillance cameras, often in an improper manner and transgressing their basic function. It becomes an instrument for observing the world, in the search for a slight poetic sense. The act of vision is the central element of her work that declines in her latest research on optical devices, often used as instruments of control, bringing attention to the always reversible overturning between who observes and who is observed. Her work has been exhibited in art galleries and public institutions, such as Fondazione Prada Osservatorio (2016), Fondazione Fotografia Modena (2017), P420 (2017), MAMbo - Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna (2018), Palazzo delle Esposizioni (2018), Fondazione Francesco Fabbri (2018) e Kunst Merano Arte (2019).
Giaime Meloni (Cagliari, 1984) is an Italian artist.
He is a visual researcher with a PhD in Architecture, currently living between two islands: Ile-de-France and Sardinia. The aim of his work is to explore the role of photography as a sensible instrument to narrate the space complexity. His research has been published in various publications (MAM Saint Etienne, INTRU). Giaime Meloni takes part in several International Conferences (CCA, FAUP), and also participate in national and international exhibition (Ritmo Indipendente, Pavillon de l'Arsenal). In 2017 he was shortlisted for Premio Graziadei with his long-term project Das Unheimiliche. He teaches photography as an instrument of the making of the architectural design between France and Italy. Her practice conceives an act capable of questioning the complex nature of places.
Giangavino Pazzola (Sassari, 1981) is Associate Curator at CAMERA - Italian Center for Photography