photo by Nicola Bertellotti, Cementera
At the Museum of Iron San Bartolomeo, Brescia, Italy, visitors can admire the winning, mentioned and selected shots from the second edition of the Italian Association for Industrial Archaeological Heritage (AIPAI) photo contest 2023/2024 until June 23, 2024.
The exhibiton will then run at Fondazione AEM, Milan, Italy, from September 19 to October 4, 2024.
European cities in general, and Italian ones in particular, exhibit traces of a secular heritage stratification that transcends the borders of the industrial revolutions. Productive vocations perpetuated over centuries or millennia, the prolonged exploitation of natural resources, and the incredible longevity of infrastructure or hydraulic works supporting production are characteristic of the Italian territory. The contest, open to both professional and amateur photographers, aims to raise awareness of industrial culture, collective memory of labor, architectural, technological, and landscape heritage of industrial archaeology.
The photo exhibition is organized by AIPAI in collaboration with Associazione Archivio storico Olivetti (Ivrea), DICEA – Università Sapienza di Roma, Do.co.mo.mo Italia, Fondazione AEM (Milano), Fondazione ISEC (Sesto San Giovanni), Fondazione Maire (Rome), Fondazione MUSIL (Brescia), RoMe Museum Exhibition, Rete Fotografia e TICCIH Italia, Comitato Internazionale per la Conservazione del Patrimonio Industriale.
The exhibition showcases ‘Soft Machine‘, the winning project by Nicola Bertellotti, in which the author has represented abandoned industrial architectures as a pretext to create a new post-industrial imaginary, seemingly originating and justified in archaic eras.
The project ‘Lo Scrigno’ (‘The Casket’) by Claudia Mancarella, dedicated to the distillery Ex Alc.Este of Ferrara, which won the Mecenati Prize for Under 35 Young Talents, is also on display. The prize, a news of this edition, this year is sponsored by the Maire Foundation and provides a contract for the realization of a photographic project.
Also featured are the projects that received special mentions: ‘(Re)FineArt’ by Carlo D’Orta, offering an original reinterpretation of industrial details, shapes, and landscapes; and ‘Il futuro non fa breccia in questo muro. Cinta, cancelli, ruderi, visioni’ (‘The future doesn’t break this wall. Walls, gates, ruins, visions’) by Luigi d’Aponte, in which the author presents an original interpretation of the legacy of the former ILVA – Italsider Bagnoli industrial site.
The exhibition itinerary also includes ‘L’ex Tabacchificio Salvati: un monumento al lavoro’ (‘The ex Tabacchificio Salvati: A Monument to Work’) by Andrea Martino and ‘Canal de Castilla’ by Nicola Cavallera, as well as selected shots by Chiara Cevales, Roberto Ciocchetti, Paolo Felletti Spadazzi, Fabrizio Fiscaletti, Milvia Morocutti, Giovanni Peressotti, Francesca Pompei, Alvise Raimondo, Roberta Vassallo and Claudio Zanirato.
Explore the photo projects of the exhibition here
