Atlas Italiae

• Silvia Camporesi

Atlas Italiae represents the traces of something lost, but still grounded to the places it belongs to. Primeval and indefinite energies become material through Silvia’s eyes. During one and a half year she explored all the twenty Italian regions, looking for forgotten and abandoned villages and buildings. Atlas Italiae is the result of this set of images, an ideal map of the vanishing Country, an atlas of the disappearance.

The sequence of the photos reveals as a poetic collection of places, based on the research of fragments of memory. Desert villages which don’t seem to exist even on the maps, crumbling architectures worn down by wild vegetation, industrial plants prey to oblivion, former summer camps almost frozen in the never again time.

“In the images by the artist the anonymity and the silent observer’s gaze open up unveiling the deep soul of the locations, frozen in the foggy collective amnesia. Here Silvia’s glance goes beyond the pure report of reality, as it is directed to both record the silent tension of the extreme ends of Italy, as well as to reveal unexplored qualities, which bring us mystery and fascination”. This is Marinella Paderni, in the forward of the volume Atlas Italiae, edited by Peliti Associati.

The exhibition will show an extraordinary wide selection of images, with big format colour prints and smaller black and white prints, coloured by hand with a peculiar method – in homage to the past of photography – this way the artist tries to recall the lost identity of the places.

Silvia Camporesi, born in Forlì in 1973, a degree in philosophy, lives and works in Forlì.
By means of video and photography, she builds tales which use myth, literature, religion and real life as starting point. Her recent research is dedicated to the Italian landscape. Since 2003 she exposes personal shows in Italy and abroad – Terrestrial clues, Italian Culture Institute of Beijing in 2006; Dance dance dance, MAR of Ravenna in 2007; La Terza Venezia, Photographica Fine Art Gallery, Lugano in 2011; À perte de vue, Chambre Blanche, Quebec (CAN) in 2011; 2112, Saint James Cavalier, Valletta (Malta) in 2013; Souvenir Universo, z2o Sara Zanin Gallery, Rome, in 2013; Planasia, European Festival of Photography, Reggio Emilia, in 2014; Atlas Italiae, Abbaye de Neumünster in Luxembourg in 2015.
Within the collective shows she participated to: Italian camera, Island of San Servolo, Venice, in 2005; Confini, PAC, Ferrara, in 2007; Con gli occhi, con la testa, col cuore, Mart, Rovereto (TN), in 2012; Italia inside out, Palazzo della Ragione, Milano, in 2015.
In 2007 she won the Price Celeste for Photography; in 2008 she was one of the finalists of the Talent Prize and in 2010 of the Terna Prize; she was the winner of the Francesco Fabbri Prize for Photography in 2013 and of the Rotary of Arte Fiera in 2015. Atlas Italiae is her third photographic book.

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Silvia Camporesi
Hotel, Porretta Terme (Emilia Romagna)
Silvia Camporesi, 2015
Dimensioni variabili
Edizione 5+1

Silvia Camporesi
Interior, Borgo Taccone (Basilicata)
Silvia Camporesi, 2015
Dimensioni variabili
Edizione 5+1

Silvia Camporesi
Hotel, Salsomaggiore Terme (Emilia Romagna)
Silvia Camporesi, 2015
Dimensioni variabili
Edizione 5+1

Silvia Camporesi
Cement plant, Alzano Lombardo (Lombardia)
Silvia Camporesi, 2015
Dimensioni variabili
Edizione 5+1

Silvia Camporesi
Castle, Rovasenda (Piemonte)
Silvia Camporesi, 2015
Dimensioni variabili
Edizione 5+1

Silvia Camporesi
Restaurant, Genga (Marche)
Silvia Camporesi, 2015
Dimensioni variabili
Edizione 5+1

Silvia Camporesi
View, Roghudi (Calabria)
Silvia Camporesi, 2015
Dimensioni variabili
Edizione 5+1

Silvia Camporesi
View, Borgo Giuliano (Sicilia)
Silvia Camporesi, 2015
Dimensioni variabili
Edizione 5+1

Silvia Camporesi
Spa, Porretta Terme (Emilia Romagna)
Silvia Camporesi, 2015
Dimensioni variabili
Edizione 5+1

Silvia Camporesi
View, Isola di Pianosa (Toscana)
Silvia Camporesi, 2015
Dimensioni variabili
Edizione 5+1