VARESE. From 11 February to 3 March 2024, Villa Pomini in Castellanza (Varese) hosts three exhibitions dedicated to photoreportage, a trailblazing event for the 12th edition of the European Photography Festival curated by Claudio Argentiero.
The exhibitions – with images of Roberto Travan, Giovanni Mereghetti, Reza Khatir e Ugo Panella – were organized by the Italian Photographic Archive with the patronage of the Municipality of Castellanza, as part of Filosofarti – Philosophy Festival. The themes addressed anticipate those of the next European Photography Festival (from 16 March to 25 April) with the aim of «deepening our gaze beyond appearances to highlight the invisible – from an ecosystemic, social, cultural, ethical and theological point of view , through different forms of analysis and artistic expression – and build forms of life, generative and anthropic relationships at a community level”, explains the curator.
Nagorno Karabakh, la pace tradita
It is the long-term project started in 2016 by Roberto Travan in the small enclave between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in the South Caucasus. The story of a people forced to defend its roots and its very existence from Azerbaijan’s aggression: the War for Independence in 1992, the Four Day War in 2016, the Forty-four Day War in 2020. Finally the dramatic epilogue, in 2023: over 100,000 people, 90% of the population, are forced to abandon Nagorno Karabakh forever exhausted by almost a year of total isolation, deprived of food and basic necessities due to the Azerbaijani blockade of the only border crossing, the Lachin corridor. «An authentic ethnic cleansing operation which in thirty years cost forty thousand deaths, one million displaced people and immense destruction. An unfortunately forgotten, invisible war: the umpteenth, not the last” states the author.
Iran, beyond the veil. «If the eyes, as many claim, are the mirror of the soul, through the thin slit of the niqab we are offered an opportunity. That of learning to read them”, claims Giovanni Mereghetti, author of the photographic research carried out with the Iranian Reza Khatir.
Reza Khatir’s photo
There are almost one hundred million women in the world who wear the veil. «With the elegance and sweetness that distinguishes the fairer sex – from the Maghreb to the Middle East, but also further east – these figures without an apparent identity, move in everyday life in a society that by tradition and religion wants them like this: hidden from the eyes of the unknown” says Khatir. In their shots the invisible and mysterious truth of a veiled humanity is released.
Photo Giovanni Mereghetti
Ukraine, on the children’s side
“There is a lack of painkillers, the operating room does not always have the equipment available for the most complicated operations, the doctors protect the windows with strips of insulating tape to prevent the movement of air from the grenades from turning the glass splinters into bullets.”
Photo Ugo Panella
With these words Ugo Panella describes the photo reportage he created in the national oncology hospital in Kiev, Ukraine. A journey into the pain and hope of the little hospitalized children and their parents, overcome by illness and the terror of the war unleashed by Russia which does not hesitate to bomb schools, homes and hospitals. Images that make visible “psychological and practical burdens that are difficult to imagine by those who are fortunately far from the consequences of a war”.
Dove: Villa Pomini, via Don Luigi Testori 14, Castellanza (Varese)
When: From February 11th to March 3rd
Timetables: Saturday 3-6.30pm; Sunday 10-12 and 15-18.30
Free admission
For information: [email protected]