“Totem and taboo”, symbols and models between past and present. It is the subject of the fifteenth edition Colornophotolife photography festival of Colorno (Parma), which again this year combines the roots and new frontiers of photography with several years of musical and audiovisual moments. Its peak will be from Friday 27th to Sunday 29th September, but events and exhibitions will continue until 10th November.
Before the start of the exhibitions, there was a meeting with Monika BulajPolish photojournalist and documentary filmmaker, Trieste by adoption, entitled “Submerged Geography”. We will talk about ethnic and religious minorities, wandering peoples, between religions and religious confessions in the countries visited through images of intense visual and emotional sensitivity that characterize this work.
Official exhibitions of great authors will be displayed in the historical premises of the city. There are five exhibitions in the Orangery on the ground floor (from 27 September to 10 November). It will be seen “The Search for Beauty” by Elio Luxardo (1908-1969) who rose to fame as a photographer of Cinecittà wonders and stars from the 1930s to the 1960s, devoting his career to creating perfect images of bodies and faces. The exhibition is curated by Roberto Mutti and gathers over 100 images of the Italian-born artist born in Brazil, where he established himself as a documentarian and before that as an athlete.
“The Call of the Deep Soul” by Oreste Ferretti Parmesan, a great traveler and enthusiast of ancient and primitive cultures, edited by Silvano Bicocchi, presents an engaging reportage using his large photographic archive, which includes seven thematic portfolios and leads us to discover the mystery and magic of the various totems and taboos worshiped in sacred celebrations and the profane that lead us from Asia to Africa, finally with a look into the future at the super modernity of Dubai. Journalist profession: Angelo Cozzi.
“Photographic perspectives of the second half of the twentieth century”, edited by Ascanio Kurkumelis, focuses on some of his great output and highlights his two passions: reportage and portraiture. The exhibition is an opportunity to rediscover photographs that have gone down in history, and to reawaken the attention of the author, who with his images took millions of readers inside the most important historical events from 1951 to the end of the 1980s.
with “Reconstruction between ritual and myth” from the archive of the Roman agency Publifoto kept by the CSAC of the University of Parma, Claudia Cavatorta and Paolo Barbaro identified footage that ranges between official and news between the fifties and sixties. The years in which Publifoto has been associated with new models of journalism. These are shots that take us back to aspects of a vanished Italy, between backwardness and consumerism, between local reality and the already global dimension of image culture.
Finally, work from Lorenzo Cicconi Massi titled “Loyal to the Tribe” focuses on young people, a 21st century journey attracted by the shapes, colors of make-up and tattoos exhibited in the need to disguise and get to know each other between Italy, Malta and Beijing.
The MUPAC premises (top floor of the Orangery) open up the stairs and here we meet six more exhibitions. Pierpaolo Mittica with the project “Semipalatinsk“crime of nuclear testing”, Francesca Dusini, a young photographer from Trentino, with “Svejk” (an award-winning work by MUSA) tells the story of life on the set of a television series inspired by the works of Hašek and Brecht with its images; “Through Immaculate Vision” by Caterina Codat (winner of ColornoPhotoLife 2023) is a photographic work composed of twenty images taken last year at the Martini art gallery in Cà Rezzonico; “Omotesando” by Massimo Napoli of Salerno (winner of Portfolio Italia 2023) focuses its attention on the frenetic daily life in one of Tokyo’s most famous shopping and fashion areas; “Half a meter from the ground” by Maurizio Guarino (winner Fixed theme ColornoPhotoLife 2023) is a work created between October 2022 and March 2023 inside the social-health day center of the social cooperative “Kepos” – a non-profit organization in the city of Prato – which hosts 13 people in a semi-residential way, including girls and boys, with motor disability.
Finally a collective “Strange days” with the 25 best photos in the TTA – Travel Tales Award competition, a competition for both amateur and professional photographers that gives space to travel stories.
The complete program and all the details about the ColornoPhotoLife 2024 festival can be found on the website www.colornophotolife.it.