Futures moves to the city

CAMERA and research, up-and-coming talent and the territory: these are the combinations of words and meanings that have guided the now four-year work of the European project titled FUTURES Photography, of which the Turinese centre is a key part, as the sole Italian board member.

Eleonora Agostini, Matteo de Mayda, Leonardo Magrelli, Giulia Parlato and Silvia Rosi are the five photographers chosen this year and involved in the activities along with another seventy artists from various European countries: they have taken part in workshops with photographers of international calibre, as well as numerous professional encounters at the Futures Photography Festival in Amsterdam, and now, thanks to a partnership with five independent spaces around Turin, they will be able to showcase their work from the end of November through until mid-March 2022.

The spaces involved in this synergic cooperation process – Almanac Inn, Cripta747, Jest, Mucho Mas! and Recontemporary – are non-profit organisations working towards the promotion of new talents and the languages of contemporary art on the national and international scene. CAMERA asked each of them to host a solo exhibition, respectively by Eleonora Agostini, Matteo De Mayda, Leonardo Magrelli, Giulia Parlato and Silvia Rosi, delegating to the individual organisations the contact with the artists, as well as the conception, development and production of the exhibition.

“Over the last four years, thanks to FUTURES Photography,” comments programme coordinator Giangavino Pazzola, “CAMERA has identified and involved over twenty young artists, not only in exhibitions, studio visits and workshops, but also connecting them to the other fifteen European photography institutions and festivals with which the Turin-based centre founded the platform. As coordinator of the programme, CAMERA has set itself the goal of providing communicative space to FUTURES talents and offering them opportunities for visibility, as well as contributing to the cohesion, growth and promotion of the local art scene.

 

The programme:

Leonardo Magrelli @ Jest
Via Bernardino Galliari 15/D, 10125, Turin
24 November 2021 – 23 January 2022

Jest is a space given over to photographic culture, operating through the organisation of exhibitions of national and international artists, courses and educational activities, events and presentations. A point of reference and a place of exchange for all lovers of the visual arts, Jest interprets photography both as an expressive and narrative medium, and as a language and democratic communication tool for the construction of a more aware, critical and participatory civil society.

Leonardo Magrelli presents a preview of his most recent work, The Plant, which is still in the expansion phase. The exhibition reflects the potential nature of the evolving work, adopting an open, fragmented and combinatorial approach that invites the viewer to interact with the images, recomposing them within customisable and ever-changing publications. The photographs thus lose their entirety and fixity, presenting a jagged dimension of the image, where individual details alternate, almost to the point of abstraction.

 

Silvia Rosi @ Recontemporary
Via Gaudenzio Ferrari 12, 10124, Turin
15 December 2021 – 4 February 2022

Founded in 2018 to explore the impact of digital technologies in contemporary art, Recontemporary aims to build an active and participatory community, making audiovisual languages more accessible. Through exhibitions, workshops and laboratories with schools, this cultural reality fosters collaboration and dialogue between institutions and artists on the international scene in order to offer an increasingly complete and up-to-date vision of a constantly evolving art form.

Silvia Rosi’s exhibition, held in the spaces in Via Gaudenzio Ferrari and split into three video works, retraces a key theme from the photographer’s artistic research: the deployment of memory as a means of handing down traditions and the reproduction of movements to stimulate recollection. Rosi thus analyses her family’s origins and their experience of migration from Togo to Italy, taking up the ancestral memories of her own roots.

 

Giulia Parlato @ Mucho Mas!
Corso Brescia 89, 10154, Turin
14 January – 27 February 2022

Mucho Mas! is an artist-run space founded in 2018 by Luca Vianello and Silvia Mangosio. A place for meetings and experimentation, sharing and research. Since its opening, Mucho Mas! has hosted emerging and mid-career artists, both from Italy and abroad, bringing back a transversal and experimental approach to contemporary imagery.

Diachronicles (2019–2021) is a project by Giulia Parlato that recounts the absence of memory and the central role that archaeology, photography and the museum take on in the fabrication of collective history. The exhibition focuses on a more installation-based approach, telling the story of the intricate and complex world the artist creates through her imagery.

 

Eleonora Agostini @ Almanac Inn
Via Reggio 13, 10153, Turin
4 February – 4 March 2022

Almanac Inn is a non-profit organisation that aims to develop the artistic research of emerging artists, to promote art as an educational medium and facilitate exchanges between young international artists, local audiences, institutions and art professionals. Founded as a programme parallel to Almanac Projects in London, the platform is delivered as a series of residencies and exhibitions guided by critical research.

A Study On Waitressing is the latest project in which Eleonora Agostini uses photography, text and the moving image as forms of exploration of stage, backstage and performance. The figure of the mother and her job as a waitress serve as a vehicle to address concerns about the visible and the hidden in interpersonal relationships, as well as the roles we play in our daily lives.

 

Matteo De Mayda @ CRIPTA747
Via Catania 15/F, 10153, Turin
4 February – 28 February 2022

Cripta747 is a non-profit organisation founded in 2008 to support research and contemporary art. It operates at the intersection of artistic practices and cultural debates, offering an annual programme of exhibitions, residencies, talks and events designed to encourage dialogue and exchange between visual arts and other expressive languages, and to offer the public an authentic and unfiltered vision. The projects carried out over the years have brought to Turin a new way of narrating the evolution of contemporary realities through the work of emerging artists and curators, but also of major historical figures. This approach makes Cripta747 a platform for meeting and exchange open to the outside world and to collaboration supporting and promoting artistic production.

Non c’è quiete dopo la tempesta (‘There is no calm after the storm’) is a long-term research project by Matteo De Mayda that weaves together archive and reportage photos, satellite and microscope images, individual testimonies and scientific theories, with the aim of telling the story of storm Vaia and the communities it affected. The project analyses what happened, weighing up the causes, responsibilities̀, consequences and future prospects, while raising greater public awareness of climate change.

 

 

FUTURES (EPP – European Photography Platform) is a research platform on contemporary photography financed by the European Union and focusing on the mapping and support of up-and-coming artists beyond national borders. FUTURES is co-financed by the EU’s Creative Europe Programme.