Our Photography area takes part in Visions, a new international festival
Salvatore Elefante, who heads the area, and faculty member Arianna Rinaldo are the festival’s artistic co-directors. Its Edition 0 runs through December 8.
Visions, the Camprodon International Photography Festival, opened on October 24 with a strong presence from our Photography area. Salvatore Elefante, who heads the area, and faculty member Arianna Rinaldo are the festival’s artistic directors, working within a team that also includes LCI Barcelona students and alumni.
Presented at the former Estrella Damm factory in Barcelona and in Camprodon itself, the festival is free to visit through December 8, with exhibitions spread across several venues around town.
Lines of resistance
Camprodon sits in a mountain valley on the French border. In 1939, during the Retirada, the exodus of Republican refugees to France at the end of the Spanish Civil War, thousands of people crossed these mountains into exile. That memory is where Visions’ Edition 0 begins. Under the theme “Lines of resistance,” the festival’s six exhibitions look at resistance as an active force and a human condition: resilience, overcoming adversity, and vulnerability in the face of the social, human and environmental changes of our time.
Six exhibitions across town
The route combines three indoor heritage venues, open on weekends, and three outdoor ones:
- Monsanto: A Photographic Investigation by Mathieu Asselin, at the Casal Camprodoní. Five years of research into one of the world’s largest agrochemical corporations and its impact in Vietnam and the United States, with portraits, landscapes, court files and company memorabilia.
- Topographies of Fragility by Ingrid Weyland, at Passeig de la Campa. The artist alters her printed photographs until they are warped, torn or crumpled, to speak about the fragility of the landscape.
- The Day May Break by Nick Brandt, at the Monestir de Sant Pere. Portraits of people and animals together, in settings created in Kenya and Zimbabwe. It is the first of four chapters in a global series.
- Atlas of the New World by Giulia Piermartiri and Edoardo Delille, at the Pont Nou. Imagined landscapes where land, sea and city blend, from the Maldives to Mont Blanc.
- It would never be quite the same again by Xavier Ribas, at the Hotel Camprodon. Images, documents and texts in dialogue, from the struggles in Chile’s nitrate mines in the early 20th century to the resistances of today.
- Crossings, on carrer València. The festival’s intercultural education program, with an annual open call for photography students at schools across Europe.
During the week, the outdoor exhibitions at the Pont Nou and Passeig de la Campa are open to the public. On weekends, the indoor venues open too, along with guided tours, routes and other activities.
Who’s behind it?
Visions is run with the collaboration of the Ajuntament de Camprodon, the Diputació de Girona, the Generalitat de Catalunya, and the “la Caixa” Foundation, among other organizations. It also has the support of the Fundació Comunitària de la Vall de Camprodon and Estrella Damm.
Its cultural partners include the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Hochschule Bielefeld, Blik Photobook Week, Llibreria Anglada, Raül Carmona Fotografia, and our school, LCI Barcelona.
The full program and a map of the venues are available on thefestival's official website.
*Main image: Ingrid Weyland.