I'm really pleased to see my friends at Bitume have managed to get everything in order and ready to kick off this year's Bitume PhotoFest which is taking place in Gallipoli. I've been fortunate enough to be involved with the translations of the project and as such I've been able to get in on the inside track and be exposed to dozens of international photographers who are participating or exhibiting at this year's festival. The festival which kicked off in August with a call for artists and a residency in the Serre Salentine area will now move into its main public phase which includes the inauguration of the outdoor exhibition which snakes its way through the port and old town of Gallipoli, more conventional indoor exhibits and a host of other events including a photo book festival, talks, live music and a pot luck/slide show event that is open to the public. I'm going to repost some of the work by artists involved with the project over coming days but if you're around this week get down to Gallipoli or over to the website if you're not. Good luck guys.
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We've been trained to question things. To be sceptical about everything, especially if it's something that paints us in a bad light. For those of us who come from European orgin, there's a strong case to argue to suggest that our ancestors were kind of assholes in their quest to dominate and conquer lands far and wide. Some people refuse to acknowledge this. They prefer to be unapologetic when looking back at their heritage and when considering the actions of their forefathers. But, if you're in the very least bit compassionate and can understand that we've been plodding along in the dark, thumbing and feeling our way through things you can probably also accept that there have been quite clear cut cases that we've gotten things wrong in the past as people and that we need to address that for our future generations so that they really can live and learn. Even before their cultures were decimitated by the arrival of British colonialists and the ongoing and systematic stripping of sovereignty, freedom and rights by Australia at large, Aboriginal culture on the island continent was already the oldest continuous culture that existed on Earth. People make all kinds of claims about things. They harp on about being this and that but there's little evidence to back them up. In the case of Australia's Aboroginals there's a lot of evidence that points to a long period of continuous occupation (50,000+ years). It's not referred to as civilisation because Aboriginals didn't build cities. Instead they built up an amazing encycleopidic knowledge of the land that helped them adapt and move in accordance to the seasons and the available resources. The knowledge that was shared and passed down, orally and through the prehistoric Web which played out in art on rocks, walls and in caves is remarkable. Way more appealing than a set of Encylopedia Brittanicas and much more environmentally friendly than Netscape or Internet Explorer ever were. The ancestors of Australia's indigenous people were among the first people to leave Africa over 75,000 years ago, and, because earth looked very different back then, they crossed its lands on foot and fashioned some of the world's oldest sea faring vessels to cross the waters to get to what is now known as Australia. It's believed that once they arrived up to 250 different indigenous languages were spoken across Australia with estimates suggesting there could've been anything up to a million people living in pre Colonial Australia, forming hundreds of different cultures, some of whom stayed in their geographic area and others who moved around. There's a brilliant documentary from a couple of years back, First Footprints, which examines how these different groups of people overcame harsh conditions they found in Australia. The most important way they managed to adapt and survive in such an unforgiving environment was throught the communal sharing of the knowledge: including of things that you could and couldn't eat, places where you could get water and shelter and routes that one needed to follow in order to survive and prosper. In addition to spiritual imagery many of the images that they left behind were contemporary reflections of their world or of the information that had been passed down to them by their ancestors. Among the remarkable documention of their world are references to the changing sea levels over time. Researchers Patrick Nunn and Nicolas Reid have put forward a case that there are at least 21 cases in the record that accurately document thousands of years of sea level changes over the scope of 7000 years. After all not many cultures in the world bore witness to the climatic change that occurred with the arrival and passing of the ice age. The research also addresses the scepticism many people have of oral traditions, particularly those that span thousands of years. It's a fascinating idea and potentially another piece in the puzzle if their theories hold true. I for one am fascinated by this and I'm pretty sure you'll be interested in reading more too. If so there's more here. Just add another branch to the family tree. Homo naledi has been discovered in South Africa, and despite the "orange sized brain" me thinks HN was more sophisticated than Trump will ever be. More here Thought Rome was all coloured villas, hanging vines, potholes, attitude and smog? Well you might be right, but once upon a time it was less and more. Yet another layer of its dense history has been revealed with the discovery of a 2,500 year old residence. Smack in the middle of town. Geez the Romans have always loved prime real estate. Go here for more. Ok, diplomatic relations are just not what they used to be. I don't know how many of my friends have been having such a hard time just getting their paperwork to join their spouses in their respective countries. I'm feeling them! It's the worst. Now consider that Israel and Iran haven't had diplomatic relations since the 1970s. But, a group of Israeli artists and curators are doing something about it. They're about to open an "Iranian embassy" in Jerusalem. And I bet you wouldn't be put through hoops to get your papers stamped there. More here. It's the kind of news story you end up hearing at least once with every election campaign. But this one takes the cake. Michael Stipe is not a shiny, happy person and boy does he have some choice words for Donald Trump, who used his music at an event. Damn that blue eyeliner thing that Michael took to the extreme back in the day should have been like a warning beacon to all and sundry not to mess with that m*ther. The result of doing so here. Madge's Rebel Heart starts beating live for the very first time in Montreal. Nuns dancing on poles, lots of old hits but it's a shiny, happy people Madonna this time around by all (very positive) accounts. And she -shock- covered up (and played a ukulele). Reviewed here by Montreal press and here by Matt, the world's most informed M fan. Is your child a psychopath? It's the question I find myself wanting to ask parents here almost daily. But seeing as I'm such a frigging gentleman I won't, however I have half the mind to direct them to this article, if only to induce panic in them. WHEN you're so accustomed to living in a big city where everything is available to you at most any time, it can take a while to get your head around smaller places and the fact that you often have to seize the moment in case you want to see something cultural. Generally smaller population bases mean shorter runs at theatres and galleries, so I can't tell you how many times I was meaning to see something in the last year and never got around to it due to, well, a million reasons. But this weekend I stopped by Otranto. It's a cute little town of around 6,000 people that swells into something completely unrecognizable once the summer hoards get in. But the reason I headed over wasn't to enjoy the water, or the views of the Albanian mountains (Albania is technically closer to Otranto than Bari or Rome), but instead to check out the newly refurbished Otranto Castle and an exhibition that was being housed within. Ferdinando Scianna is a Sicilian photographer who began working in the seventies, and who, by the eighties was invited to join Magnum Photos. Over the years he has predominantly worked as a fashion photographer and his images have also been used in countless high profile advertising campaigns. But for Italian audiences, his images particularly strike a chord for their recurring motif of the deep south, which anyone in Italy will tell you is a world of it's own in comparison to its northern counterpart. When you've such a huge body of work to draw from, drilling in on a theme in an artist's work can be very satisfying. In the exhibition Il Sud E Le Donne (The South and the Women), Scianna's treasure chest has been raided, with around thirty black and white images of women photographed in the south having been selected for the show which has previously travelled to Bari and Matera. There's a good balance between staging and candid documentary in the show, even if some of the staged moments can be a little overpowering. But what we're looking at are images predominantly drawn from the eighties and nineties and their aesthetic.
Remember, it was a time when Herb Ritts was the undisputed master of black and white portraiture, when staging was de rigour and a time in which the photographers were more well known than the models. But that all changed with the nineties and after almost everybody had tried their hand at black and white. That said, Scianna is clearly a master composer who leaves traces of his own fashion background in every image. The images of women in the south are almost always in evocative southern settings: by turns Moorish, desolate or claustrophobic. The South also provides the subtext for the show: the exhibit ties in with Tu Non Conosci Il Sud (you don't know the South), a cultural project which seeks not only to examine the south, but to contribute to its relaunch. Remember, Southern Italy is in a very different state than the Central/North. The name derives from the Pugliese poet Vittorio Bodini and the swirling discourses that took place in reaction to the stereotypical ideas such as that of the south as simply being a place of criminal activity But, back to the photos. It should be said that there's more than the odd nod to the times in them. But the way that fashion seems to transcend the generations and date them at the same time is pretty breathtaking. As I've also been helping out with the translations for an upcoming photography festival here, I've found myself thinking a lot about the current view on photography. I find it amazing how we like to think that photography per se shapes our view of things and the world. But I would add that we seem to forget that framing and subjects are elements that are shaped as much by the times the photos are taken in as they are by the photographer's preferences themselves. Beyond the black and white nature of these photos, their fashions and their styling, there is somewhat of a time stamp to them, even if as a collected group they seem to be about elegantly positioning women of the south in a way that most mainstream media refuses to do (or acknowledge). The central placement of the female figures, the staging, the reliance on props...they're all hallmarks of an approach that you can see through if you think about it and don't allow them to define things too much for you. But that's the same with any kind of photography. Usually, the best photography (especially contemporary) drags you towards being wowed or impressed before you even have time to think about it. Sometimes, the vocabulary, like here, is more evident, because we've had time to process the language and our own tastes have since changed. But that doesn't detract from the fact that the images, such as the two in this post, are still compelling images, and very much documents of their time and of the tastes of their time. If you manage to make it over to Otranto before the end of September, the exhibit and the castle grounds are well worth visiting. Visit tunonconosciilsud for more info. I'm not one of those people who is on twitter constantly hashtagging with #amwriting. In some cases I don't mind it all, especially when there's some killer examples of typical things writers do attached. Like the one I saw that said: maintaining friendships just for the material. hashtag am writing. But this week I've been plugging away at my book in my hot, AC less apartment, still feeling quite chuffed and all. I haven't #beenwriting so much as #meetingadeadline. But I'm a bit bummed. You see I've been writing, editing and doing revisions and as such have not had any time to find out who this Camila girl is that everyone seems to be tweeting about. I also haven't had time to catch up on my OITNB episodes from like two years ago, do the shopping, clean the house or cook dinner because, gosh, I've been writing, but, strangely enough I did find time to go to the beach. Long story short. Back to posting things next week. Were you any good at guessing games? Without doing any research or a Google search, who automatically springs to mind when it comes to the richest pop star on the planet? A Beatle? The Queen of Pop? The Boss? The King (both dead whichever you deem king). Simon Cowell? Actually Simon's not a pop star...scrap that. If you believe the reports the answer is... someone else. And has less to do with record sales than being an astute investor if you believe the numbers and the article. Answer here. |
Dave
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Dave Di Vito is a writer, teacher and former curator.He's also the author of the Vinyl Tiger series and Replace The Sky.
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