'FOTOGRAFIA FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE DI ROMA IX EDIZIONE -FUTURSPECTIVES'
MACRO Testaccio
23 September - 24 October 2010
www.macro.roma.museum
by Samantha Lana

The Macro Testaccio, The Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, is hosting the ninth edition of the ‘Fotografia Festival Internazionale di Roma’. Divided principally into three sections, each assigned to a different curator, the exhibition has the main goal of examining the relationship between photography and the surrounding world, discussing the role it can perform in delineating the expectations for the future. Thus the theme, ‘FUTURSPECTIVES, can photography interpret the future?’. This futuristic attitude is a clear departure from the common perception of photography as a symbol of the past, a nostalgic medium of which images recreate stories that have already taken place. It is therefore, that of the artists that display their works in this show, an innovative challenge that traces a new tomorrow for the visual arts field. The two stands hosting the exhibition are structures that facilitate its development naturally, thanks to their continuous and large space. The visitor is thus free to wander undisturbed, without the risks of queues, and has also the possibility, once in the second stand, to personally interact with the art works through multimedia structures and texts. The preparation of the show is therefore studied purposely to favor the approach of the visitor to the works exhibited and to the messages they enclose. The section ‘Photography and contemporary art’, entitled “Bumpy Rides” and whose curator is Paul Wombell, faces the difficult argument of the future through the shots of pessimistic realities that clash with the actual beauty of things. Inspired by the report “Global Trends 2025: A transformed world”, of the National Intelligence Council, the aim of this exhibition is to “help the reader to recognize signposts indicating where events are headed”. In the shots of “The museum of nature”, Ikka Halso denounces the inevitable future of nature, forced by the global pollution, to be locked into great greenhouse museums; the tears of the children photographed by Jill Greenberg, announce the destruction of the future of the generations that are yet to come, caused by the evolutionary block imposed by today’s fundamentalists; Ebru Erulku instead, hypothesizes a similar catastrophe to that of 9/11 in the city of London. The work of these artists is carried out with the intention of causing strong reactions, warning the viewer of the incumbent dangers. Also dedicated to the theme of future, ‘Photography and New Media’, curated by Valentina Tanni, is based on the exchanges occurring between photography and the modern structures of communication. The strong influence internet has had on society pervades the works of art in the form of critiques or of simple observations. Filippo Minelli explains through his pictures the decadence brought by the new social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter; Rafman instead exhibits an ironic selection of images taken from Google Earth that include people that are unaware of being photographed. These works remind the viewer that the web has nowadays entered our daily lives blurring the barriers separating technology from reality. The last, amongst the principal exhibitions of the Festival, ‘Photography and Publishing’, curated by Marc Prust, entitled “UNPUBLISHED- UNKNOWN”, discusses the definition of the word photography, that is, it questions what defines a photograph as such. Can an image that is not yet known to the public exist? This argument is developed through the display of more than ninety projects by various artists whose works have never been published. Moreover, within the Festival, the viewer can also observe the shots of the city of Rome by Tod Papageorge; the show ‘ECCLESIA’, of Matteucci, that offers an alternative view of the church through a representation of its structures in countries such as Burkina Faso; ‘Mutations 3: Public Images, Private Views’, that presents, amongst other works, the Sochi Project, an illustration of the changes in Russia, the country that will host the Olympic Games in 2014; the winner of the PREMIO LIBRO 2009, Deformer, by Ed Templeton; and some of the works by the International Academies of France, Spain, and America. A large selection is thus offered, covering a national and international field, in the pursuit of innovation and progress. FUTURSPECTIVES, moves away from the prejudices formed throughout history on the limits that enclose the potentialities of the visual arts, creating for them a new existence.