It is called "Sense of Place" and is a photographic account of the territory and community of Figline and Incisa Valdarno.
The exhibition includes the display of shots taken ad hoc in Figline and Incisa Valdarno over the past year by the TerraProject collective (one of the most important and internationally awarded collectives), along with those on Figline signed (and already exhibited in the past) by two greats of photography, Paolo Monti (1980) and Gianni Berengo Gardin (2011), reproposed in a selection curated by the Circolo Fotografico Arno, which preserves them in the Municipal Historical Archives.
The exhibition will be open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am-1pm and 3pm-7pm (closed Dec. 25 and Jan. 1).
Details about the exhibition:
Not only places and landscapes, but also portraits and a lot of daily life, including work, study, culture, leisure and spirituality, to tell the story of the territory of Figline and Incisa Valdarno through the story of those who live there. These are the images that it will soon be possible to admire at Figline's Palazzo Pretorio, which will become "The Palace of Photography" from Oct. 29 to Jan. 15 .
The exhibition, curated by the authors themselves, is a production of the Culture and Territorial Marketing Service of the Municipality of Figline and Incisa Valdarno and includes texts by Valdarno writer Vanni Santoni, both in the "extra content" format of the captions in the exhibition and in the printed catalog, edited by Giovanna Calvenzi, one of Italy's greatest photo editors .
The project and side events:
Promoted by the municipality and carried out together with TerraProject, Circolo Fotografico Arno and Foto d'Arte Lab, with the support of BCC Valdarno Fiorentino, the project aims to tell the story of the territory and its community, to preserve its collective memory. How? By combining the shots commissioned in 1980 and 2011 by the then Figline Valdarno City Council with those "updated" and taken, between 2021 and 2022, by TerraProject. Not just postcard photos, but a reportage on the territory, to show its points of interest and productive activities but, above all, the people who live there, work there, live there and make it unique. An opportunity, therefore, not only to update the Municipal Historical Archives, ideally continuing the photographic campaigns that began with Monti and continued with Berengo Gardin at the time of the former municipality of Figline Valdarno, but also to show how and how much the territory has changed over time, starting with the union with the former municipality of Incisa in Val d'Arno, which, contrary to Monti and Berengo Gardin 's exhibitions , is now included in the exhibition.
TerraProject's shots will be placed on the second floor of the Palazzo Pretorio; on the first floor, however, a selection of the images immortalized by the two great masters and curated by the Arno Photographic Circle will be on display.
In addition to the exhibition, the project includes:
guided tours, reserved for primary and secondary schools (for info: cultura@comunefiv.it);
the possibility for groups (minimum number: 10 people) with accompanying person, to request an extraordinary opening of the exhibition. At least one week's notice is required;
three evenings to discover, together with Circolo Fotografico Arno, the history of Figline and the Municipal Photographic Historical Archives (Saturday, Nov. 5 at 5 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 17 at 5 p.m.), as well as an in-depth look at landscape photography (Saturday, Nov. 12 at 5 p.m.);
two portrait workshops to learn together with Foto d'Arte Lab, using a camera (one's own or borrowed, for the occasion, from association members) or a smartphone, how to make a photographic portrait, from the first approach with the protagonist of the shot to the printing stage (Saturday, Nov. 26 and Saturday, Dec. 3, 5 p.m.);
guided tours of the exhibition, curated by the four photographers who make up the Terraproject collective, who will accompany visitors, recounting their work of documenting the territory and illustrating their methodological and stylistic choices (Saturday, Nov. 19 and Saturday, Dec. 10, 5 p.m.);
a final themed conference on the occasion of the finissage of the exhibition (Saturday, Jan. 14, 5 p.m.).
The authors of the new shots: the TerraProject collective
TerraProject Photographers is a documentary photography collective founded in Florence in 2006 by Michele Borzoni, Simone Donati, Pietro Paolini and Rocco Rorandelli. One of the first photographic collectives to be born in our country, TerraProject soon became an important platform of comparison and promotion for its members, who over the years have also developed anoriginal methodology of "collective writing," with group projects defined by a refined stylistic uniformity. The authors have always focused their research on social and environmental issues, both globally and nationally. In Italy they have built over time an important archive of documentation of the territory, thanks to relevant public and private commissions. The collective's works are regularly published in the pages of major Italian and international magazines and have been exhibited in galleries, festivals and prestigious international museums, including Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), MAXXI (Rome), Fondazione MAST (Bologna), MACRO (Rome), Benaki Museum (Athens), Palazzo Ducale (Genoa), UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), Katzen Arts Center (Washington), National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Les Rencontres d'Arles (Arles), Cortona on the Move Festival (Cortona), Festival della Fotografia Etica (Lodi) and the European Parliament (Brussels).
TerraProject has published numerous monographic and collective books, and their works are held in important public and private collections. Members of the collective have received prestigious international awards , including the World Press Photo (2010 and 2012), Canon Prize (2010), Fund for Investigative Journalism (2011), Pesaresi Prize for Contemporary Photography (2013), Graziadei Prize (2014), Celeste Prize-Streamers (2016), Landskrona photobook dummy award (2018), and the Gabriele Basilico Prize (2020).