San Donato Milanese, photography at the center: six exhibition itineraries to tell stories of distant lands and cultures.
The link between Cascina Roma Fotografia in San Donato Milanese and photography has become increasingly close over time. This year the event returns with six exhibitions, almost all of which have never been seen before in Italy, by as many young international photographers
San Donato Milanese, photography at the center: six exhibition itineraries to tell stories of distant lands and cultures.
The link between Cascina Roma Fotografia in San Donato Milanese and photography has become increasingly close over time. This year the event returns with six exhibitions, almost all of which have never been seen before in Italy, by as many young international photographers. Six exhibition itineraries, from 22 April to 4 June, of exceptional quality and very different from each other from which unusual stories emerge, tales from lands and cultures far from ours.
A series that is divided between the rooms of Cascina Roma Fotografia and the outdoor public spaces, accessible thanks to an approach aimed at bringing photography into the community.
The authors are Chiara Negrello, Mikkel Hørlyck, Ian Cheibub, Stephan Lucka, Laure Andrillon and Jana Mai.
Chiara Negrello with Like The Tide tells the stories of a group of women fishermen in the Po Delta, in Emilia Romagna. Gender equality in Italy varies from region to region and based on the dividing line between the life that women lead at home and in the workplace. In this tangle of culture, traditions, politics and patriarchy, the women of the Delta have been an integral part of the economic engine that has raised their families and the entire region for three generations. They seem to naturally find a balance between physically demanding work such as fishing for clams, carried out in a climate that is certainly not pleasant, and an extraordinary commitment to taking care of their families and each other. Just as the water reflects the blue-grey skies, these women present themselves to us in double guise with a physique tested by the elements, but which shines with kindness and care.
This photographic story follows the lives of these women as the Covid-19 pandemic raged and their own industry faced the uncertainty of the future. Through the lens, which gave us this extraordinary sisterhood of women set in a small remote village, this project hopes to undo some of the stereotypical ideas of femininity and being a woman.
Mikkel Hørlyck with Last Stronghold. “Refugees don't give up easily. They are fully aware of the risk they face and what awaits them in Croatia, but they are determined to cross the border,” says Nataša Omeroviš, 47, a humanitarian worker who coordinates the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
In northwestern Bosnia, refugees and migrants suffer one defeat after another when they try to cross the border into the European Union and Croatia, where there are around 6.500 police ready to turn them back. Living conditions for refugees and migrants stuck in a persistent condition are difficult. They suffer violence and humiliation at the hands of the Croatian border police which is very powerful and takes the little money that migrants have or destroys the cell phones they bring with them. The NGO Border Violence Monitoring Group and various media outlets have been denouncing the violence of agents for several years now. Since 2015, the European Union has granted Croatia 150 million euros to strengthen border controls and keep migrants and refugees out of its borders. Migrants have left their home countries due to precarious or unsustainable living conditions, whether due to conflict, poverty or natural disasters that prevent them from returning.
Ian Cheibub with There's a Hole Inside Us
Under the ground there are our dead and our wealth. Planes, cars, refrigerators, buildings and much of the material that surrounds us comes from Carajas, the largest iron ore mine in the world, located in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. Today it generates billions of dollars in profits for companies, but it was once the center of the most important guerrilla movement in Brazil. In 1982, 10 years after the fighting stopped, the Great Carajás project was launched by the Brazilian government, with assistance from the United States. This operation brought with it a legacy of historical erasure as human rights violations were buried across the 900.000 km² of the region.
This project therefore aims to research both the voids left in the land due to mining activity, and those in the people who live in Carajas and who keep the complex history of this region in their memory. It is an alternative story where the photographer investigates how myths and syncretisms are tools of subversion to the status quo, looking at the intersection between culture, addiction and exploitation. The objective is to create a narrative that portrays these people as protagonists of society, reaffirming their centrality in the complex relationship between the environment they inhabit and the history of a place.
Stephan Lucka with The Feeling We Only Know.
If you ask a scout what is special about being a scout, the answer you often get is: “It's hard to describe, a feeling that probably only scouts fully understand.” Stephan Lucka knows this feeling well, because he himself was a scout in his youth. With this project he wanted to get photographically closer to this "indescribable" and he did so by returning to the Boy Scouts, immersing himself once again in that world familiar to him.
The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are the largest youth movement on the planet: there are around 46 million worldwide, 260.000 in Germany. Scouts form their own sociocultural microcosm, a small world that always reflects a broader social context. What still makes the Scout environment attractive today in the eyes of young people in such an accelerated, consumerist and high-tech society? The images try to give a visual answer to the question that is so difficult for most scouts to answer and give a faithful story of growth, friendship and intimacy, but also of respect and consideration, on how we want to treat each other and how we can live together.
Laure Andrillon with Fountain of Youth.
The Harlem Honeys & Bears are a senior synchronized swimming team founded in 1979 in the heart of Harlem, New York. Members currently range in age from 64 to 100. Some members of the team have been swimming since they were born; others have overcome their fear of water in their sixties.
In February 2022, this community began gathering at the pool again, after spending almost two years away from the water due to the pandemic and the resulting closure of public pools. Every Tuesday and Thursday, the Honeys & Bears transform St Mary's Recreation Center, located in the Bronx, into a joyful playground. Some leave their canes and walkers on the pool deck. When they slip into the water, gravity seems to disappear, illnesses and injuries go unnoticed: they feel young again. For these swimmers, part of the African-American minority, the pool has become a place of physical but also psychological healing, as some of them have experienced firsthand the era of segregated swimming pools in the United States. They remember what it was like when they could only go to the pool on “colored” days and when the pool had to be emptied the next day because white people were too disgusted to swim in the same water as black people.
These five exhibitions can be visited in the exhibition rooms of Cascina Roma Fotografia.
Jana Mai instead takes us to the Republic of Moldova, where there is a small autonomous region known as Gagauzia. Here lives a population that is largely unknown but which preserves ancient traditions. “The Descendants of the Wolves” are a Turkish minority of Christian Orthodox faith who proudly seek to preserve the identity of a people, the traditions and above all the language to achieve, one day, the desired independence in long dreamed.
This exhibition can instead be visited at the Laghetto Europa park.
Epson, partner of the Traveling Festival
Epson offers photo printing on various types of media and not just specific photo paper. In particular for en plein air exhibitions, the format that was so successful at the Festival of Ethical Photography in Lodi was also implemented for the exhibitions in San Donato Milanese, where Epson technology made it possible to produce large-scale photographic prints and strong impact for colors and details, characterized by high quality and long life thanks also to inks resistant to sunlight and atmospheric agents.
About the project
FARMHOUSE ROMA PHOTOGRAPHY is a project created by the Gruppo Fotografico Progetto Immagine, creator of the Festival della Fotografia Etica, in collaboration with the Municipality of San Donato Milanese. Starting from autumn 2018 until December 2024, Cascina Roma will be transformed into an international centre dedicated to photography, a place to delve into the culture of the image. Important exhibitions all year round, in addition to biannual photography workshops, photography courses, thematic meetings and an “Educational” project, which aims to involve citizens and, in particular, middle and high schools.
For information: Alberto Prina tel. +39.3883638088 INFO@CASCINAROMAFOTOGRAFIA.IT
To stay updated and for more information visit: cascinaromaphotography
Reproduction reserved © Copyright La Milano
