Photography is an artistic and design practice that allows not only to create artificial worlds, but also to know and deepen social, political and expressive introspectives. It can be a mirror of a reality that we intend to analyze, a document of emotional spheres or even a residue of a future still unexplored. “Le Fotografe” is a series by Terratrema Film and Seriously for Sky Arte created and directed by Francesco G. Raganato, born to explore this concept.
Entirely dedicated to eight Italian women photographers and to their creative world realized through the use of a camera, each episode of the project focuses on one of them, giving space to her gaze and her individual sensitivity, elements that make her photography the means by which to convey her inner world and her artistic quality.
Le Fotografe deals in fact with artists who come from different backgrounds, who have different ages and who shoot with styles that are also diametrically opposed. What they have in common is simply the use of the camera as a research tool, which traces new contexts and feeds the present of a heterogeneous and multidisciplinary visual culture, crossing fashion and art and then touching music and politics.
The creative world of women photographers
The protagonists of the television series, Guia Besana, Ilaria Magliocchetti Lombi, Sara Lorusso, Carolina Amoretti, Maria Clara Macrì, Roselena Ramistella, Zoe Natale Mannella and Simona Ghizzoni do not only deal with strictly feminine themes, but also reveal complex worlds in which each one carries out her research, grows in her work, affirms her presence in the context of visual culture, contributes to changing and enriching the Italian photographic imagination. In each episode, the protagonists are portrayed in the act of creating something original, with an eye always turned to the present and the future. At the beginning of their careers, in the growth phase or already established, these eight professionals bring their specific human and professional characteristics to the screen.
Starting from family environments and home situations, Guia Besana takes her own life experiences to push into political and social territories, dedicating her photography to the role of women in contemporary society.
Ilaria Magliocchetti Lombi is a photographer who has followed practically all the rock and indie bands of the moment. In addition to the obsession of stopping time, capturing in her shots the energy of the artists on stage, Ilaria also dedicates her shots to those women who with determination and passion are changing the world as we know it.
And if “the personal is political”, as Guia Besana teaches us, so is our body, a territory that Sara Lorusso explores with an expansive and capacious gaze. Sexuality is documented without any judgment and taboos are reduced to pieces, leaving the identity of the subject to speak and to perform the freest and most fluid self-expression.
With the term “fantagirl” Carolina Moretti takes us inside her photographic world, illustrating not the ideal woman, but the one with different body types, imperfections and disabilities, to whom she entirely dedicates her practice and her fashion project.
Maria Clara Macrì’s photography traces real emotional geographies. Using her camera, the creative takes what she defines as “empathy shots“, images resulting from the tactile understanding she manages to establish with each of her subjects. From here, the range of her photography is amplified, touching themes such as the intellectual independence of women, inclusiveness and the canons of beauty.
Winner of the Sony Photo Award, Roselena Ramistella needs little introduction. Her visual account of Sicily and its women is raw and unbiased, showing universal conditions and issues.
Zoe Natale Mannella’s shots are intimate and dreamlike and deal with female gaze, friendship, confidence and sisterhood. What distinguishes her practice is an instinctive and free approach that exudes from her camera to the imagery she creates.
Finally, magnetically attracted to the camera, Simona Ghizzoni has discovered photography as a means to explore her own body, bringing out, through this, themes shared by the experience of being human, such as the relationship with Nature.
Mariachiara Proietti Di Fulvio
