BARI – Scenes of life, people, moments of everyday life in the neighborhoods: snapshots of a city immortalized in every corner, from different and original perspectives, beyond any cliché. 36 photographs have been selected for the exhibition which, hosted inside the Teatro Margherita in Bari from 3 to 12 May, represents the final moment of the first edition of the Bari Photo Contest – Peripheral Sight.
More than 200 photographers and more than 500 works nominated for the photographic competition aimed at all photographers, professionals and amateurs, created and promoted by Cime and the Municipality of Bari, with the support of the Puglia Region and in collaboration with the MiC – Ministry of Culture – Regional Secretariat for Puglia, the University of Bari – Department of Humanistic Research and Innovation, the Academy of Fine Arts of Bari and the media partnership of the sector magazine Il Fotografo. Technical sponsors: Image Center Production and Foto Diego.
Judging the works received and decreeing the eight winners of the contest were the internationally renowned photographer, already juror and winner of the World Press Photo photojournalism award, Manoocer Deghati (President of the jury), the director of Cime, Vito Cramarossa, the Manager of the Department of Culture, Tourism and Territorial Marketing of the Municipality of Bari, Luciana Cazzola, the Director of the Tourism, Economy of Culture and Territorial Enhancement Department of the Puglia Region, Aldo Patruno, Director of the Regional Secretariat of the MiC for Puglia, Maria Piccarreta , the Associate Professor of Sociology and Urban Sociology at the University of Bari, Letizia Carrera and the Professor of Digital Photography at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bari, Michela Frontino.
THE WINNING WORKS:
1st Prize: Nicola Abbrescia, 2024 – Bari, Poggiofranco, via Papa Giovanni Paolo I
2nd Prize: Simona Perrini, 2023 – Bari, Santo Spirito, via Udine
3rd Prize: Marco Ranieri, 2021 – Bari, Marconi – San Girolamo – Fesca, via Giuseppe Verdi
4th Prize: Giacomo Pepe, 2024 – Bari, Libertà, via Martiri D’Otranto
5th Prize: Ida Cuccovillo, 2021 – Bari, Libertà, Corso Italia
6th Prize: Giuliano Tamborra, 2023 – Bari, Marconi, San Girolamo, Fesca, Lungomare IX Maggio
7th Prize (ex aequo): Aurora Milella, 2024 – Bari, Japigia, via Natale Loiacono
7th Prize (ex aequo): Nicola Moscelli, 2023 – Bari, Marconi – San Girolamo – Fesca, via Napoli
In addition to the photographs of the winners, the exhibition consists of shots by: Alessia Decrescenzo, Angela De Nicolò, Angelo Facchini, Angelo Grieco, Giacomo Loiudice, Anna Maria De Marzo, Anna Marzia Soria, Annalisa Macina, Aurora Milella, Camillo D’Angelo, Caterina Piccoli, Davide Bellagi, Emilio Nuzzolese, Fabiano Lauciello, Fabio Colangiuli, Nicola Abbrescia, Francesca Speranza, Raffaele Coletta, Gennaro Gargiulo, Giovanni Cataldi, Giuliano Tamborra, Manlio Ranieri, Marco Mastrolitti, Michele Carnimeo, Moana Battista Canu Spada, Pietro Amendolara, Roberta Lonigro, Rocco Pedone.
“Noting the great success of participation in the first edition of the Bari Photo Contest is a source of great pride for us – explains Vito Cramarossa, director of Cime -, he tells us how this city and its entire reference community want to get involved game, to contribute with one’s active commitment to the creation of great cultural initiatives. Events that give the right gratification to photographic talent and passion but which, at the same time, allow us to convey a narrative linked to the city that is enriched with points of view and facets. For us, this means having laid the foundation stone for a contest and an exhibition which, we hope, can become recurring events in the city’s cultural panorama”.
“Bari Photo Contest is the first photographic contest of the City of Bari designed to give space to “other” views on the city, created by virtue of the institutional synergy with the Tourism and Culture department of the Puglia Region, led by Aldo Patruno, whom I thank, as I also thank the councilor Nicola Amoruso and the partners who supported the competition by rewarding the winners with technological tools – comments the councilor for Culture and Tourism Ines Pierucci -. In these years of cultural policies, the art of photography, thanks also to the collaboration with CIME, has found a home in the Margherita theatre, despite the restoration work not being completely finished: I think of the many editions of World Press Photo, the exhibition ” Planet or Plastic” by National Geographic, to the “Reading” exhibition by McCurry or to the “Icons” exhibition by Erwitt, which is still ongoing. The extraordinary openings of the theater in recent years are the result of collaboration with the regional secretariat of the MIC, which has followed the recovery process of the theater from the beginning. Once again the protagonists of this reflection open to the city are the suburbs, in recent years at the center of a strategic investment by the municipal administration: they, the suburbs, have won, and with them the photographers who have given us their own personal representation of our city, convinced that, from different and marginal angles, we can see things more clearly, as Franco Cassano taught us. With this competition we want to give the city a different look, which is what we have tried to do in recent years, with great effort but with an extraordinary response from cultural operators and the community. Through the involvement of neighborhoods other than the centre, new strategies can be built, capable of giving voice and cultural citizenship to a wider and more diversified audience of people”.
