In Narni, from 19 October to 3 November, the photographic exhibition of the IX international festival ‘Narnimmaginaria’, a journey between America, Calabria and Palestine
“Photography, the human landscapes of Narnimmaginaria: from Primo Dorello to Mark Power, hundreds of works exhibited in the City of the Ring”. The Sator Association, at the ninth edition of the international Festival, takes a ‘sprint’ forward: an event of interest aimed at the census of the tourist, cultural and sporting events of 2024.
In the Caracciolo room of the former “Beata Lucia” orphanage (an institution founded in 1739, and which has undergone various uses) in Narni, the period works of Primo Dorelllo from Narni will be exhibited in 3D. An experience with anaglyphic viewer and glasses that takes the viewer inside the _’CITIES OF UMBRIA’_ of times gone by. This is just one of the evocative proposals of the IX international festival ‘Narni Imaginaria: the homage to the anatomopathologist and anatomy teacher, hobby photographer, born in the city of the Ring in 1872, and died in Bologna in 1936. All of this, thanks to the collaboration with the State Archives of Terni.
Prof. Dorello left a notable collection of glass plates made with the stereoscopic technique (1336 positive and 337 negative plates). The images mainly testify to the Umbrian landscape and cities in the early twentieth century. They constitute a precious iconographic source for documenting the transformations of the rural, urban but also human landscape: what most of all guides the Sator volunteers in the selection of authors and works.
“Narnimmaginaria” is hundreds of works, by different authors, which will accompany spectators inside some of the most beautiful locations of the city, which attracts more and more photographers also from overseas, for an event curated with love and passion: made possible thanks to the contribution of the Foundation Carit, which financed the project.
In the two weeks from 19 October to 3 November Narni is transformed into a large photographic laboratory. The program includes not only exhibitions, but also meetings with photographers, book presentations, portfolio readings, photographic workshops, shows and photographic walks. Among the proposed photographic paths is that of the _’PO RIVER’_: Michael Kenna tells the story through images the longest river in Italy, in the intimate ‘human’ relationship he has established with the waterway since they first met in 2007 (exhibition in the Beata Lucia Church).
But a particular ‘Good morning’ also comes very far from Narni. It’s called _‘GOOD MORNING AMERICA’_, the exhibition by Mark Power (MAGNUM photographer) which offers a complete, but not conclusive, account of what the American urban landscape is, starting from the very distant lands of North Dakota up to the extreme opposite. In the images – almost, we would say, like in Kevin Costner’s latest cinematic masterpiece, “Horizon” – climate, politics, culture and society.
At the disposal of *Richard Billingham*, however, the headquarters of the Sator Association (at Pozzo Romano); here it will be possible to immerse yourself in _’RAY’S A LAUGH’_. The young English photographer produced this very intimate and at the same time dramatic family reportage, highlighting the implications of a life dominated by poverty and his father’s alcoholism.
And how much internal ‘noise’ is the exhibition _’INTO THE SILENCE’_ by *Carlo Bevilacqua* destined to make: which tells the story of the hermits of the Third Millennium. At the San Domenico Complex, fascinating images and portraits of a surprising humanity are on display, with clear pictorial influences. Lay or religious, Catholic or Orthodox, shaman healers or simple poets who love solitude, their testimonies have a powerful effect.
Entering Palazzo dei Priori, however, the works of *Dario De Dominicis* lead to Guanabara, the natural port of Rio de Janeiro, where industrial development is taking over the territory to the detriment of traditional fishing, leaving only 12% of the entire area to 8,000 fishermen. Here, _’TO THE LEFT OF CHRIST’ (that is, to the left of the historic Christ monument of Corcovado?), the oil companies – in a typical Latin American situation, unfortunately – have today colonized the bay of Rio, from the surface to the bottom of the sea .
There is the sensitivity of a woman behind the shots of _’VITILIGO’_. L’occhio di *Rosa Mariniello* collects a series of portraits of people affected by vitiligo. The images offer the gaze a private dimension, often painful, due to the dominant aesthetic canons. Social interactions, romantic and sexual relationships, and the career of a person suffering from vitiligo… they are there, immortalized and exhibited in the San Domenico Complex.
Delicacy and fleetingness of existence, through visual immortality. The proposal by *Tina Salipante* at Palazzo dei Priori is called _’ORPHIC EVANESCENCES’_. A female figure wrapped in fairy-tale atmospheres with a mysterious aura; enigmatic symbols, such as stairs that disappear into nothingness, eyes that peer into the beyond, feet that touch unknown borders, are just some of the features of a journey through images on the border between dream and reality.
But finally, how can we not take advantage of the charming village of Stifone in the Gole del Nera? Here _’LAND WHERE THE EARTH ENDS’_ by *Daniela Gallo*, which with a strong interpretation of a ‘destructive’ current situation, parallels two peoples in continuous exile: Palestine and Calabria. Statelessness is the common denominator. Abuse, abandonment, backwardness, isolation, wonderful but violated, distorted, destroyed lands: same eyes, same anger, same suspension) (the writer, going on a work trip to the West Bank years ago, noted, in fact, the singular environmental similarities between the lands of Palestine and the lands of our South, especially in areas such as Calabria, Basilicata, Molise).
Fabrizio Federici
