Artist
Irene Fenara
Irene Fenara (b.1990) is an Italian artist. Her research focuses on the way of seeing and practicing observation on images. She reflects on linguistic devices and she use 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). She is one of the fifth finalists in ING Unseen Talent Award 2019.
Supervision
With Supervision Irene Fenara presents a selection of images from surveillance cameras, and saved by the continuous flow that erases them every 24 hours, underlining the contrast between a highly functional activity and an equally powerful aesthetic. The aesthetics of surveillance, supervision and control are realized thanks to devices that frame the amplified vision. In this imagery, seductive and dystopian at the same time, forms of plant or animal life interact with the machine. The visions, like oxymorons frozen in photographs of warm and acid colors, introduce into a space, apparently without human beings, where the development of technology is related to the growth of its potential through the web. The relationship between observer and observed is marked by the entry into a world of post-privacy through the use and dissemination of protected data, extrapolated from the context of origin. The sharing of protected data, extracted through a hack, in a space where many observe few, makes the user involved, and therefore complicit, in a process of normalization of surveillance.
Self Portrait
With this series Henriette Sabroe Ebbesen brings her camera and fisheye lens around the world to take self-portraits in the surrounding landscape. Emerged in the natural surroundings she plays with the idea of becoming one with nature, thus allowing her own body to become part of the pre-existing landscape.
The round shape of the fisheye lens reminds her of Earth's shape and creates an interesting planet-like effect in each landscape.
Self Portrait from Surveillance Camera
Irene Fenara's interest in theories of visual culture and the need to appropriate the tools of contemporaneity, which determine our way of seeing, become an opportunity to practice observation and reflection on images. Using an instrument usually foreign to art: that of surveillance cameras that acquire images for the sole purpose of environmental control, with Self Portrait from Surveillance Camera Fenara relates power and vision. The work bears the traces of a movement, that of the artist who goes from the studio to the surveillance camera and then saves the image that portrays her before the continuous flow cancels it 24 hours later. The artist's gaze, turned towards the lens, becomes an act of resistance to impose her own identity on the controlled world, a reversed point of view that makes us reflect on the always reversible relationship between the observer and the one being observed.
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