Brief distances (A city to browse)the personal photographic exhibition by Paolo Pacinidedicated to Lucca, opens on Sunday (28 April) at 6pm at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni of the Banca del Monte Foundation, curated by Paolo Bini, created with the Lucca Sviluppo Foundation, with the patronage of the Municipality, Lucca Summer FestivalWe Love Ph, Fiaf (Italian Federation of Photographic Associations).
It is scheduled for the inauguration a musical performance by the guitar quartetcomposed of the students of the Passaglia musical high school: Clerici Timothy, Marchini Nicoló, Paoletti Federico and Siciliano Gabriele, coordinated by professor Francesco Ciampalini, will perform music by Andrew York, Maximo Diego Pujol, Camille Saint-Saëns.
“Within these pages, a city is revealed, which goes beyond the common imagination defined by its urban elements. Lucca reveals itself as a vital entity, which actively interacts with those who travel through it or simply call it home – he writes Susanna Bertoni in the preface to the catalogue, published by Maria Pacini Fazzi Editore -. This project, an expression of the sensitivity and deep love that Paolo Pacini, a journalist, has for it, invites an exploration through unique angles imbued with personality. Through the five large chapters into which the publication is divided, it offers a sensorial experience that celebrates the multiple beauty and inexhaustible energy of this city”.
The exhibition, which will remain open to the public with free admission until 16 Junewill be divided into sections.
The first, the range of shadows: the story begins during the pandemic, from the window of the editorial office where Pacini works, overlooking an almost always deserted and ghostly square. “I started to freeze some moments of this long emotional and social ‘interval’, fixing it in particular in the few passing shadows”. The second Mura, the bird oasis: taking advantage of this interval and the ecological corridors project, even the urban fauna has been enriched with new life, around the historic city walls, where the flight of aquatic birds has designed new spaces.
The third Urban visions in black and white/Urban visions in color: the walls, the monuments, the historic buildings act as a motionless counterweight to the flow of daily life, between full and empty spaces, lights and shadows, sometimes dreamlike atmospheres. The fourth The city of music – Lucca Summer Festival: “Lucca is also music, of every kind – declares Pacini -. Among its many expressions I chose the close encounters with the stars of the Summer Festival, the international event that every summer in Piazza Napoleone or on the terraces of the Walls awakens the city from its centuries-old torpor, to the rhythm of rock, soul and pop. And through all these images, so different from each other, I tried to compose a sort of zero-mile emotional reportage to tell in my own way, going from room to room, leafing through page after page, this small, large, magical world that is Lucca … Images at short distances”.
A series of quotes will accompany the visitor in reading the shots, from the Rolling Stones to Alda Merini, passing through Giuseppe Ungaretti, from Lucca by origins and memory.
Paolo Paciniborn in Lucca in 1963, professional journalist, for thirty years The nation Lucca deals mainly with crime and judicial news, but has made the professional eye a filter with which to observe the city and grasp its faces, sides, moments, like those on the stage of Lucca Summer Festival, where he immortalized more than one big name, or like the flight of the herons over the ditches under the walls, one of the series for which he is best known as a photographer. Known online, since it is an activity he carries out out of passion and mainly using social media as a ‘place of exhibition’, so much so that this exhibition is the first, in a physical sense, dedicated to his work, in Lucca.
“I am a photographer out of passion, or rather today I would say for a… flashback – writes Pacini -. From an early age it was my father who put a camera in my hands, obviously analogue, and who passed on to me the taste for framing, composition and the moment to be fixed in time. In my youth I started with a photographic club in Lucca, I exhibited in some group exhibitions, but after a few years I abandoned everything, also thanks to the theft of my equipment during a trip. The advent of digital photography intrigued me again and pushed me after years to pick up a camera again: it was a partly new language, a different challenge, interesting and pleasant to take on. As a journalist I have always written about my city from many aspects, but at a certain point I also felt the need to tell it in another way, through images. I was perhaps looking for a bit of poetry among so much prose. I wanted to show its many faces, often in contrast with each other: lights, shadows, silences, black and white, but also sudden explosions of music, life, nature and colours”.
“In this sense, the tsunami of the pandemic, paradoxically, also offered me an unexpected opportunity – he continues -. From the window of my editorial office, overlooking an almost always deserted and ghostly square, I began to freeze some moments of this long emotional and social ‘interval’, fixing it in particular in the few passing shadows. Meanwhile, taking advantage of this interval, even the urban fauna was enriched with new life around the city. In short, I tried to put these different elements together to compose a sort of zero-mile emotional reportage that told the story of this little big world that is Lucca… Images at short distances.”
From the new and successful partnership created by Palazzo delle Esposizioni with Artebambini, Tuscany section the program of meetings dedicated to schools, children and families during the exhibition period has already been defined: visits and photographic and artistic workshops that are different each time and tailor-made for families and children aged 3 to 10. The dates are: Thursday 2 May, Wednesday 15 May, Wednesday 5 June, Monday 10 June (at 5pm) and Thursday 13 June at 10am. For information, reservations and costs: [email protected] or 3339676264.
Photo by Fbml Burlamacchi
Tags: Short distances Paolo Pacinis photographic exhibition Palazzo delle Esposizioni
