Reggio Emilia TO Palace of Museumson the third inaugural day of the exhibition “Contaminations” Of Young Italian Photography #11, which collects, edited by Ilaria Campioli and Daniele De Luigi, the photographic projects of Claudia Amatruda (Foggia, 1995), Benedetta Casagrande (Milan, 1993), Noemi Comi (Catanzaro, 1996), Massimiliano Corteselli (Tivoli, 1994 ), Camilla Marrese (Bologna, 1998), Cinzia Romanin (Brussels, 1995), Alessandro Truffa (Cuorgnè, Turin, 1996), many young people and enthusiasts gathered to attend the awarding of the prestigious prize dedicated to Luigi Ghirri.
The awards ceremony was attended by Valentina Galloni, director of the Cultural Services of the Municipality of Reggio, and the supporters and sponsors of this edition of Young Italian Photography: Fausto Papa, CEO of Reire srl who has accompanied the project since its inception and Martina Miselli for the Youth Group Entrepreneurs Unindustria.
The Young Italian Photography Award | Luigi Ghirri Award, worth 4000 euros, which also includes the prestigious opportunity to present a personal exhibition in the spaces of Triennale Milano during 2025, was awarded by a jury composed of Giovanna Calvenzi for Triennale Milano, Alessandro Dandini de Sylva, Paola De Pietri, Adele Ghirri for Luigi Ghirri heirs archive, Luce Lebart, member of the artistic direction of Fotografia Europea, to the Milanese photographer Benedetta Casagrande, with the project “All Things Laid Dormant” with the following motivation: “for the conscious use of photographic language, for the choice of turn our gaze towards microcosms to which we are interconnected in an invisible and often unconscious way. For having addressed the ambiguity of the photographic image in a coherent and poetic way.”
In her work Benedetta Casagrande questions the ways in which we enter into relationships with other animals, the space they occupy in our personal and collective imagination and the possibility of building new forms of kinship and intimacy in a context of mass extinction. Articulated through a series of encounters with the non-human world, mediated by the implicit ambiguity of photography as a medium that simultaneously facilitates and hinders contact, “All Things Laid Dormant” is both an ode and a lament, an act of love and an expression of condolence that embodies the suffering of mourning and the desire to find a place and a sense of belonging in the fragile context of our time.
Benedetta Casagrande is a photographer, writer and curator who lives in Milan. Her artistic, curatorial and writing practice unfolds through slow research (literally translated into slow research, a term coined by Carolyn F. Strauss); slowness as a principle of listening, deceleration and repositioning with respect to the world, understood as a method for placing human experience within broader networks of relationships, spaces and temporalities. As it is based on the encounter with the world, photography is his favorite means of entering into a relationship with the surrounding environment and its animal, vegetal and object elements, through movements of proximity and distance, presence and absence, contact and his loss. Her work has been exhibited in national and international exhibitions, including Photo Brussels Festival, 2024; ADI Design Museum, Milan, 2023; Instance, Shanghai, 2021 and Photo Ireland Festival, 2019. Since 2016 she has been co-founder and co-director of Ardesia Projects.
The international jury also awarded special mentions, residencies and scholarships. Francesco Di Lella, director of IIC Stockholm, awarded the special mention “New trajectories. Gfi in Stockholm ”to Claudia Amatruda and her project “Good Use Of My Bad Health”. Julia Bunnemann, curator Photoworks, Brighton attributed the week-long immersive and ecological artist residencies in the heart of Dalby Forest to Camilla Marrese who presented the project entitled “Field Notes For Climate Observers” and to Alessandro Truffa with “Nioko Bokk”. Krzysztof Candrowicz, artistic director of Fotofestiwal Lódz has awarded three scholarships to Noemi Comi with “Proxidium”, Massimiliano Corteselli with “Contrapasso” and Cinzia Romanin with “Transcendence” thanks to which they will be able to participate in the Photo-Match portfolio reading program within by Fotofestiwal Lódz in Poland.
The “Contaminazioni” exhibition can be visited at Palazzo dei Musei until 9 June on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 10am to 8pm with free admission.
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