Mantua, the Biennial of women’s photography is back

Now in its third edition, the Mantua Biennial of Female Photography will open its doors on March 8th, reconfirming itself as a unique event in the world. The Lombard city is thus transformed for more than a month into an international showcase for important female artists, sometimes little known in our country.
Organized by the La Papessa Association with the patronage of the Lombardy Region and the Municipality of Mantua, the BBFmantova has entrusted the artistic direction, as for previous editions, to Alessia Locatelli which this year has identified a title Privatewhich contains various intriguing and current meanings.

The proposed subject is? therefore open to all languages ​​of photography and expressed in different meanings. It can be understood as a reference to private life, to the theme of privacy in its definition of what it is? public and what is it? private, in the physical world and in social networks. It relates to the concept of censorship, to the world of the web and virtual sharing. Contemplate the reality of post-photography and surveillance in public space through cameras; as well as the definition of public/private space, between real and virtual.
Furthermore, there is a vision that identifies the theme of the private as opposed to the public, following the definition of Private “What isn’t it?” public, how much is it? reserved for a single person or a small circle of people” (Enciclopedia Treccani). And here the issue of prisons, of the deprivation of identity, culture and language is addressed, as well as the current theme of gentrification and the autonomous choice of withdrawal and exclusion from society in self-managed communities.
Special attention and? also dedicated to the difficult relationship with nature and ecology expressed in the investigation into the privatization of services, the environment, water sources and the consequences of the current water and energy crisis.
The same term in the Italian language identifies a sense of deprivation, of subtraction, declined in the feminine plural. We believe in the intimate gaze that can describe the emotional sphere and the increasingly complex relationship between the personal and public image.
The Biennial of Women’s Photography has always moved on topics that concern issues of a social and geopolitical nature: education, classism, the effects of migration found in the deprivation of land, the economy, civil liberties and the neo- colonialism.

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The 2024 edition follows the same format as the previous ones, with main exhibitions of Italian and international female photographers: Daria Addabbo – Drought. No water in the Owens Valley (Italia), Luisa Dorr – Girl (Brazil), Kiana Hayeri – Where prison is a kind of freedom (Afghanistan), Esther Hovers – False Positives (Netherlands), Tamara Merino – Underland (Chile), Thandiwe Died – Camo (Kenya), Photos2 Solitary – Photo requests from solitary (United States), Claudia Ruiz Gustafson – The city in the clouds (United States), Newsha Tavakolian – And They Laughed At Me (Iran), Cammie Toloui – The Lusty Lady Series (United States) and a selection of photos by Lisetta Carmi in collaboration with the Lisetta Carmi, Martini and Ronchetti Archive (Genoa). There are numerous other initiatives, including an open call for an Off Circuit, portfolio readings, workshops, conferences and screenings of the six docufilms The Photographers the series conceived, written and directed by Francesco G. Raganato, produced by TERRATREMA FILM for SKY ORIGINAL.