FotoLeggendo, the Photographic Festival in Rome, is renewing itself for its 12th edition by breaking away from the traditional confines of museums, art galleries, and institutional venues to invade outdoor areas: walls, public squares, and streets, superimposing and merging them with diverse artistic languages and style.
For this special edition, the exhibitions are adapted to the locations, streets and spaces where people live, in particular in the Ostiense neighbourhood where the original site of the Officine Fotografiche (the association promoting and organizing the festival) is located. Photography sheds its most basic rules and shatters the barriers with street art, collages and glitch art to then be pieced back together in narratives and allusions. The unrestricted nature of urban streets perfectly embraces the blow-ups projected on buildings and walls that draw the attention of even the most distracted passer-by. The renewal meets the modern demands of tearing down the old clichés that define art, and promotes photography to an ever-expanding audience, but it is also attentive to and aware of the inevitable contamination with other forms of expression.
Concurrently with the innovation of “open-air photography”, exhibitions, within traditional venues, continue to be offered. Talks and screenings capture the impromptu, informal nature of the festival. There is a bookshop area provided through the collaboration of over ten specialized publishing houses and bookshops.
This year the opening of the festival was organised on three days, the 10th, 11th and 12th of June. In addition, the three-day long opening featured talks, book presentations, screenings, awards ceremonies and special events.
The festival hosts over 30 photographic works in addition to various collective shows by students.
Here is a selection of exhibitions:
The Officine Fotografiche is the site for David Alan Harvey’s, Tell It Like It Is. A milestone in photography documenting the incredible story of a black family in the USA in the 1960s told by the then twenty-year-old unknown Harvey who would soon become a superstar in photography, member of the legendary Magnum Photos, and photographer for National Geographic.
The Loft space displays Odyssey, a dreamlike multimedia installation by the Japanese artist now living in France, Miki Nitadori, sponsored by the Japanese Cultural Centre, which narrates the story and cultural contaminations of Japanese migrants in Hawaii.
The Rashomon spaces features the moving work, La notte immense by Alisa Resnik. The courtyard of the Officine Fotografiche will boast the outstanding exhibition of early 20th century photographs taken by the father of wildlife photography, George Shiras. In the age of digital photography, the Festival would not be complete without “mobile photography” exhibitions: #1415 Iran and Everyday Italy will be presented outdoors.
In the area of publishing, the Italian leg of the prestigious International Photobook Dummy Award Kassel returns to Rome. It awards the best, unpublished photo book mock-ups (dummy). The books are shortlisted by an international jury of experts and exhibited at International photography events.
Since 2006, also for this edition, Fotoleggendo collaborates with the International festival, Boutographies – Rencontres photographiques de Montpellier, with which it has exchanged exhibitions and hospitality.
FotoLeggendo has always been dedicated to promoting the art of photography through numerous exhibitions by rising artists and professional photographers of international fame, and many events featuring debates and interaction between artists and the audience. After more than 10 years, the festival has become a much-awaited event and an important point of reference for photography. In 2015 there were an estimated 10,000 participants, including photographers, visitors and professionals, who visited the exhibitions and participated in events during the month of the festival, including 4,000 visitors to the ISA alone in three weeks.
Officine Fotografiche Roma is a cultural association located in Rome. It is a school of photography and a cultural centre that runs year round and addresses professionals and experts in the field of photography as well as amateur photographers and enthusiasts. Officine Fotografiche Roma promotes photography in all its various styles of contemporary languages, art forms, and communication tools. The association has solid and extensive experience in organizing courses, master classes, and workshops and a rich programme of exhibitions, book presentations, talks by photographers and specialists in photography, laboratory activities and portfolio reviews. We produce events with national and international appeal such as FotoLeggendo and Obiettivo Donna.
FESTIVAL
Officine Fotografiche
Via Libetta, 1 Rome
(and other spaces in the Ostiense neighbourhood)
#fotoleggendo2016 #FL2016
