Before getting into the heart of the Ragusa Foto Festival, I would suggest you allow yourself to be awed by the elegant and exuberant Baroque style of this Sicilian city, included in the UNESCO World Heritage List as one of the Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto. There are eighteen masterpieces not to be missed in the city, with volutes that seem to multiply in a crescendo of lush forms. Similarly, the 13th edition of the Ragusa Foto Festival is rich in ideas, inspired by the concept Oltre l’apparenza (Beyond Appearances). The opening days, during which events follow one another in rapid succession, run from August 28 to 31. The Festival then continues until September 28 with exhibitions and other initiatives, transforming Ragusa Ibla – and, as we shall see, the whole of Ragusa – into a contemporary art gallery.
The Ragusa Foto Festival is an international exhibition dedicated to the different languages of contemporary photography. It promotes young artists and focuses on the territory: it transforms Ibla, the most ancient part of the city, into an exhibition area spread across various locations, including the Cosentini and La Rocca palaces, the San Vincenzo Ferreri Auditorium and the Giardino Ibleo, the core of the Festival. Thus, alongside its status as a place of architectural wonder, Ibla also serves as a venue where photography is presented and developed in a variety of rigorous and creative ways, to go “beyond appearances”.
The 13th edition of the festival is sponsored by the Italian UNESCO Commission and is under the artistic direction of Massimo Siragusa. Projects on display include Jesus and the Cherries, Jessica Backhaus’s exploration of Poland in a time of change and Televisiva by Stefano De Luigi, which revisits the period of Silvio Berlusconi’s rise to political power through the narrative of television programmes from that time with their particular and innovative language. Les Perspectives by Charles Fréger began as a reaction to lockdown closures during the period of the pandemic and was inspired by a Manet painting. It is a video project that questions our relationship with intimacy and the outside world, focusing on the evocative power of ‘entryways’: doors and windows in this case. The story of a journey and a return, of the reappropriation, on an emotional level, of a place is told in Maria Lax’s project, Taken by the Tide. In Corps à Corps by Maud Rallière, the body plays a leading role, while in Terra Mater by Cristina Vatielli, the earth is depicted as a fertile mother whose balance is often upset by human intervention. In Parallel Eyes, Alessia Rollo revisits the stereotypes used to describe Southern Italy by referencing anthropological and visual research. She does this by reinterpreting the iconographic heritage of the 20th century in a contemporary way and exploring new visual representations of rituals still practised today. Finally, in Sacred Interspaces, Johannes Seyerlein collects images of sacristies, which embody mystique, history, kitsch and much more.
The Ragusa territory is central to Francesca Todde’s project, in Residency in Ragusa thanks to the Fondazione Cesare e Doris Zipelli of the Banca Agricola Popolare di Sicilia. Dedicating herself to reinterpreting the local cultural, archaeological, monumental and environmental heritage, Todde retraces the story of Cesare Zipelli’s cultural legacy (Zipelli promoted the archaeological excavations of Kamarina and the creation of the Museo Archeologico Ibleo).
Among the projects on display is the short film Compagni di Viaggio (Travel Companions), directed by Sara De Martino and an interdisciplinary work created by students, in collaboration with the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED, Rome). You’ll also see images by Flora Mariniello, who won the Best Portfolio 2024 award, and Antonello Ferrara, whose project got a Mention.
The projects selected through two international calls are also worth seeing. The first call is dedicated to analogue photography (in collaboration with the Analog collective): Andrew Rovenko, Danae Panagiotidi, Melisa Oechsle, O’Shaughnessy Francis and Cataldo – De Marzo are the photographers selected from 250 applicants. The second one refers to the Festival’s OFF Circuit, a section of the Ragusa Foto Festival (in collaboration with the Circolo fotografico ASA 25): it is conceived as an independent space that extends the exhibition area to the entire city with a widespread photographic itinerary. As curators Alfredo Corrao and Emanuela Alfano explain, “this year, 40 projects were selected from proposals submitted by 148 authors (over 600 photographs in total). Notable features include both the concerned issues proposed and the prevalence of series over single images, as well as the strong international presence, with 49 authors hailing from Brazil to China and India to Sudan”.
The Ragusa Foto Festival’s workshops are an essential part of the event. They cover topics such as structuring a photography book project, new practices in documentary photography, methods of preserving and promoting an archive, and searching for new visual languages.
There will also be talks and portfolio reviews. If you visit the festival, you will have the opportunity to meet me, as well as Benedetta Donato, Irene Alison, Jessica Backhaus, Claudio Corrivetti, Denis Curti, Tiziana Faraoni and Alessia Paladini. The winning project will be awarded the Best Portfolio Prize, which includes a cash prize and an exhibition at the next festival.
In addition to guided tours, there will be book presentations, such as the one for the republication of Viaggio in Italia by Luigi Ghirri, in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MUFOCO), with the projection of the film Viaggio in Italia vent’anni dopo.
The Ragusa Foto Festival, conceived and directed by Stefania Paxhia, is produced by the Associazione APS ANTIRUGGINE, patronised by the Italian UNESCO Commission and supported by various public and private institutions, including the Municipality of Ragusa, the Libero Consorzio Comunale di Ragusa, the Fondazione Con Il Sud and the Regione Siciliana.
Ragusa Foto Festival
Oltre l’apparenza
From August 28 to September 28, 2025
Opening: August 28 to August 31, 2025
97100 Ragusa – RG
Italy
