Here is the third edition of the Mantua Biennial of Female Photography, which will be held from 8 March to 14 April 2024, let’s discover the details together!
Now in its third edition, the Mantua Biennial of Female Photography (BFFmantova) will open its doors on 8 March 2024, 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 who this year identified a title “Private”, which contains various intriguing and current meanings.
Here is the Mantua Biennial of Female Photography 2024
The proposed subject is therefore open to all languages of photography and is expressed in different meanings. It can be understood as a reference to private life, to the theme of privacy in its definition of what is public and what is 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 “which is not public, as it is reserved for a single person or a small circle of people” (Enc. Treccani) . And here the issue of prisons, 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.
Particular attention is 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.
Here is the Mantua Biennial of Female Photography 2024 | The photographers
The 2024 edition sfollows 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 (Italy), Luisa Dörr – Imilla (Brazil), Kiana Hayeri – Where prison is a kind of freedom (Afghanistan), Esther Hovers – False Positives (Netherlands), Tamara Merino – Underland (Chile), Thandiwe Muriu – Camo (Kenya), Photos2 Solitary – Photo requests from solitary (United States), Claudia Ruiz Gustafson – La ciudad en las nubes (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 Archive (Genoa).
There are numerous other initiatives, including an open call for an Off Circuit, portfolio readings, workshops and conferences and screenings of the six docufilms “Le Fotografe” the series conceived, written and directed by Francesco G. Raganato, produced by TERRATREMA FILM for SKY ORIGINAL. The designated places are Palazzo Te Tinelli, Rigoletto’s House, Mantegna’s House, Drawing Gallery, Arrivabene2 Space, Painter’s House. The photographs selected from the Open Call, however, will be exhibited free of charge in public places in the city, involving traders: an opportunity to make the whole city and tourists participate in the event, thus capturing their attention.