After the interruption of the first edition in 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic, the International Biennial of Female Photography returns to Mantua from 3 March, thanks to the work of the La Papessa association and the artistic direction of Alessia Locatelli.
The peculiarity of the festival is to give space exclusively to projects created by photographers, who still work today in a sector dominated by the male gaze and where the representation of the female body is often linked to gender stereotypes. The Mantua Biennial offers the artists on display the opportunity to make their work known, promoting a dialogue on equality, equality and freedom of expression.
The theme of this edition revolves around the concept of legacy, intended as a legacy for future generations. With Signs of your identityDaniella Zalcman portrays indigenous American adults who were subjected to a series of physical and psychological abuse by the Canadian government as children in church-run residential schools designed to erase all traces of their culture. The war is still alive is a project by the Iranian Fatemeh Behboudi, begun in 2014. She too, like Zalcman, uses black and white to tell a trauma, that of the mothers who still await the return of the coffin of their children, killed in the war between Iran and Iraq.
Ilvy Njiokiktjien is a Dutch photographer who con Born free explore what it means to live with South Africa’s apartheid legacy. The project lasted twelve years, from 2007 to 2019, and focuses on the first “free” generation, the one born after 1994, with its first black president, Nelson Mandela, and a constitution that guarantees the same rights for all citizens. . Through the daily life of these young adults, Njiokiktjien shows us a renewed country but still besieged by racism and inequality.
Highness by Delphine Diallo, a Francosenegalese artist living in New York, carries out a study of traditional iconography, based on anthropology and mythology, to try to expose the stereotypes and social superstructures applied to the representation of people of African origin. Tami Aftab instead relates to his origins by creating a collaboration with his father, suffering from hydrocephalus, a disease that causes the accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles of the brain. Twenty-five years ago during a coronary artery bypass surgery, the man suffered internal bleeding that damaged his short-term memory. Due to this condition, he often forgets the dog in the car, a typical and somewhat funny episode for the whole family. Thus was born the idea of The dog’s in the carin which the London photographer navigates parallel between the documentary and the show to tell about her family.
The other authors of the biennial are Solmaz Daryani, Sarah Blesener, Myriam Meloni, Flavia Rossi, Esther Ruth Mbabazi, Betty Colombo and the Lumina collective. The exhibitions will be open until March 27th.