Marina Caneve

Are They Rocks or Clouds? is a multifaceted photographic project that is based on the hypothese of the occurrence of a huge hydrogeological catastrophe in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy. Facing this idea Caneve was not moved by a necessity to document any catastrophe in its occurrence, either to celebrate the beauty of the mountains’ environment.

Hydrogeological risk for the mountains, such as climate crisis elsewhere, has become a prominent issue, which one can hardly imagine if not after something catastrophic happens. Therefore Marina Caneve builds a scenario for an environmental catastrophe to happen, through blending her research and archival footages, texts, and her own photographs. Caneve also questions the structure of our knowledge on mountainous areas which could benefits greatly if we allow different perspectives: from historical material, technical knowledge, an anthropological vision and of the inhabitants of the area themselves.

The project lacks a straight narrative, its layout (in the book or in exhibitions) constantly introduces deviations – used as a metaphor of the layering of rocks which constitutes the inner structure of mountains, thus showcasing their vulnerability.

‘Are They Rocks or Clouds?’ balances information, history and visual pleasure as the reader is asked to confront the risks we take, as humans, in our effort to live comfortably while also pushing the lim-its of how we interact with the natural world.

(Lesley A. Martin, The Dummy Photobook Prize, Cortona On The Move, 2018)

After publishing ‘Are They Rocks or Clouds?’ in 2019 I was commissioned by the National Mountain Museum in Turin of a new research focused on the exploration of mountain’s visual stereotypes starting from the Museum’s photographic Archive. The project is curated by Giangavino Pazzola and Veronica Lisino.

The title, ‘Entre Chien et Loup’, refers to the latin infra horam vespertinam, inter canem et lupum, expression that draws that moment of the day when is hard to distinguish a dog from a wolf.

I would define ‘Entre chien et loup’ a stratification of different attempts – often contradictory, where I’ve drawn entrances, windows, metaphorical peepholes, which gradually bring the viewer from one idea (a stereotype) to another. My aim was to leaving the viewer lost with a lot of questions about en-vironment, images, language, surfing from joy till death. The project’s structure is inspired by the idea of labyrinth and atlas.

Giangavino Pazzola writes: The inside and the outside, the true and the false, the artificial and the natural, the vernacular and the scientific, the cultural and the popular, and the real and the pretence are then discussed again and resignified in a single environmental installation that seems as mocking as it is subtle. Mixing all the material types, it redefines an undeclared geography inhabited by a new (and perhaps highly unlikely) ethnography, telling us of a world as fantastic as it is ambiguous, one that we have probably visited but that now seems different.

Bridges are Beautiful is a long term project based on the idea movement and borders as a possibility instead of a limit. The work is inspired by The Continuous Monument, designed in the ‘70ies by the radical group of architects Superstudio. The idea at the origin of the Continuous Monument was extending a single piece of architecture over the entire world in order to bring cosmic order on earth.

In my work I discivered a migration system breaking all european borders as a pretext to explore complex issues as Europe and migration. The system breaking all european borders I found out is technically a system of bridges, the ecological corridors, that are designed to preserve and support the biodiversity in Europe. Researching this system marks up a sensitive paradox which lies in the transition between nature and culture. On one side the political debate about the migration flows and restoration of national borders; on the other hand, the European Union investing massive amounts of money in the creation of an infrastructure dedicated to wildlife which aims to overcome political boundaries and physical limits in order to support the freedom of movement.

I’ve been researching the topic trough research and exploration. So far I’ve used different categories of images: architecture of the bridges, landscapes, depiction of the monitoring system installed and animals-images shoot by surveillance cameras installed over the bridges. I imagine the finished work as a research tool where photography plays with research balancing visual pleasure and informations. The work is meant to be an attempt to create an exploration of contemporary united Europe and the migration limits.