Fotografia Europea Festival 2023 18th Edition. Is there any such thing as a common European identity? To what extent do myth and memory shape or cement our sense of collective belonging? And how can contemporary photography foster a response to the challenges and circumstances through which European citizens live today?
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Considering the relationship between national identity and democratic community, as well as the multicultural realities of every European country today, we need to negotiate between existing as distinct nations of the continent versus a culturally homogenous population. As Peter Gowan and Perry Anderson have said: ‘empires of the past threaten to dissolve into postmodern flatlands swept only by the surf of the market.’* Furthermore, Europe is no longer considered the normative centre from which history is written. These complexities and difficulties of capturing the nature of the European community are addressed with a selection of photographic projects that focus principally on people and identities in order to confront the politics of inclusion and exclusion and the presence of history and culture in the present moment. Identities persist but spirits are restless.

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Europe Matters: visions of a restless identity

The artistic direction of the festival – Tim Clark, Walter Guadagnini and Luce Lebart –draws on the idea of Europe and its people for the 2023 edition of the festival.

Is there any such thing as a common European identity? To what extent does myth and memory shape or cement our sense of collective belonging? And how can contemporary photography foster a response to the challenges and circumstances through which European citizens live today?

Considering the relationship between national identity and democratic community, as well as the multicultural realities of every European country today, we need to negotiate between existing as distinct nations of the continent versus a culturally homogenous population. As Peter Gowan and Perry Anderson have said: ‘empires of the past threaten to dissolve into postmodern flatlands swept only by the surf of the market.’*Furthermore, Europe is no longer considered the normative centre from which history is written.

These complexities and difficulties of capturing the nature of the European community are addressed with a selection of photographic projects that focus principally on people and identitiesi n order to confront the politics of inclusion and exclusion and the presence of history and culture in the present moment.

Notions of belonging and solidarity as well as fragility and disquiet come to bear in workst hat offer, but are not limited to, a democratising portrait of the UK amidst difficult times;human rights protests in Poland; fictional documentaries set in small towns in Germany showing historical apparitions; Afrodiasporic lives summoning colonial pasts in Portugal;edible wild plant pickers on the fringes of Paris that radically reimagine our appreciation and dependence on nature; and visual love letters to the city of Odesa.

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Fotografia Europea is an international cultural festival dedicated to contemporary photography. The festival, created in 2006, is promoted by the Fondazione Palazzo Magnani and the Municipality of Reggio Emilia and it won Photo Festival of the Year at the Lucie Awards 2022 in New York.

Fotografia Europea uses photography as a tool to reflect upon the complexity of contemporary living following the lesson of the local photographer Luigi Ghirri, a prominent figure in the late ‘900s photography’s renewal, whose archive is stored in the city.

More information here.

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