The fourteenth edition of the Alcart Art Festival features three photographic exhibitions and as many talks that touch, each in its own unique way, on the theme of ‘Metamorphosis’ (from the Greek metamòrphosis ‘transformation’). It is a socio-cultural reflection on metamorphosis in every sense: personal, territorial, with others and nature.
TALK
THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Arab-Israeli conflict has inflamed the Palestinian Territories, creating death and destruction. Through the testimonies of and by guests, we will analyse this complicated path up to the present day.
MARTA BELLINGRERI – Journalist and Researcher
ALESSIO ROMENZI – Photojournalist
TRIESTINO MARINIELLO – Professor Liverpool John Moores University
VALENTINA VENDITTI – Head Middle East NGO CISS
PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION
ALESSIO ROMENZI – PROTECTIVE EDGE
“As I turn back, slowly, the last month and a half passes me by as if I were watching it at high speed through a chipped windscreen. Every scene, every emotion, every tear and every laugh consumes me and yet releases me, as if a hot shower tenderly washes away all the horror I had accumulated and stored inside. Then I realise that it is the same emotion every time I leave a war zone… that bittersweet taste, on the one hand the relief of having escaped all the scenes I have seen in this conflict and on the other the guilt of having left behind all the people I have met for whom it is not a question of deciding when to leave Gaza, because they, this luxury they do not have. They are condemned to stay there, amidst the risks, the pain, the sadness and the uncertainty of the future.” Alessio recounted the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, a military operation launched by Israel in July 2014 against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The stated aim of the Israeli operation was to stop the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel; on the contrary, Hamas’s goal was to exert international pressure to lift the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip and overcome its political isolation.
The fourteenth edition of the Alcart Art Festival features three photographic exhibitions and as many talks that touch, each in its own unique way, on the theme of ‘Metamorphosis’ (from the Greek metamòrphosis ‘transformation’). It is a socio-cultural reflection on metamorphosis in every sense: personal, territorial, with others and nature.
TALK
HUMAN BEING, PLANT BEING
The relationship between man and the plant environment treated from an anthropological and naturalistic perspective with an eye towards sustainability.
LUCA SINEO – Researcher and Professor University of Palermo
MATTIA BATTAGION – Head of Sustainability Will Media
ELISABETTA ZAVOLI – Fotodocumentarista National Geographic Explorer
PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION
ELISABETTA ZAVOLI – I’LL SHOW YOU WITH MY EYES CLOSED
The exhibition ‘I’ll show you with my eyes closed’ by photographer Elisabetta Zavoli was born from a request by the Zordan Company to tell the story of the climatic vulnerability of the Valdagno area (Province of Vicenza) from the point of view of a plant. Why a plant? The fact that we are profoundly different organisms (humans and plants) with (almost) insuperable physical differences has always made plants perceived more as things than as living organisms. Yet science says that plants see. But what do they see? What do they give importance and meaning to? The suggestion derived from this work is that of an unfamiliar viewpoint on an already known world, where the gaze of plants teaches us the profound meaning of the word sustainability or ‘shared benefit’, the only way we can all thrive together.
The fourteenth edition of the Alcart Art Festival features three photographic exhibitions and as many talks that touch, each in its own unique way, on the theme of ‘Metamorphosis’ (from the Greek metamòrphosis ‘transformation’). It is a socio-cultural reflection on metamorphosis in every sense: personal, territorial, with others and nature.
TALK
GENDER ISSUE
Through language, the cultural and social setting is transmitted and passed on. A reflection on speech and gender inequality for a more inclusive society.
CAMILLA FERRARIO – Author and Content Creator Will Media
CLAUDIA FAUZIA – Economist and President of the Mala Fimmina Association
FAUSTO PODAVINI – Photojournalist
PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION
FAUSTO PODAVINI – CALL ME BY MY NAME
Call Me by My Name is a work in progress project on gender identity. It is the story of Greta and of many adolescents in Italy today who face a difficult and uphill path of recognition, mostly due to bureaucracy and lack of awareness. Greta, now 17 years old, has been coming out since the age of 12 when her discomfort was given a name: gender dysphoria. Greta was born a twin of her brother Paolo and at birth they were both assigned male gender identity. But from the age of three, Greta felt a discomfort within herself in that male body that she never felt was hers. Call Me by My Name is a photographic work that started three years ago during the first battle Greta and her parents had with the recognition of her new status and her new name. Just a first step in a tortuous path leading to the recognition of rights and freedom of choice. Gender dysphoria now affects over 4000 people in Italy and it is estimated that it takes an average of five years to obtain a gender change at the registry office.