OPEN CALL ‘FAUNA’
FABRIZIO NACCIARETI
‘The Embalmer’
During century XVI a nobleman from Amsterdam brought on his way back from eastern India, several exemplars of local south eastern Asian birds. Due to a sudden heating system’s failure on his ship all the birds died prematurely. Rare collection exemplars were forever lost. This wealthy Dutchman gathered a team of experts willing to find a way to preserve those rare creatures. He gave life to embalming as a way to conserve in order to show all of the birds exemplars in one room taht he named “room of wonders” and this has been the first collection we have been informed about. Nowadays in Italy, only fee persons practice this so called art of embalming. Anna Maria Bertoni is the last descendant of a long line of embalmers since 1890. Walking into her “room of wonders” feels like being suspended between life and death and experiencing the stillness of purgatory. The artist puts into her every single embalmed creature a deep breath of an immortal life, different kind of animales that have impressed in their deep eyes the last shot of their lives.
‘FAUNA’ is a new call open to any suggestions on photographic series related to animals. We will be posting the best submissions on Urbanautica and related channels. Deadline is February 18th. One project selected from among those submitted will be published and printed on the 4th issue 4 of “Stand Quarterly” magazine together with the works of Alec Soth, Céline Clanet, Vincent Fournier and Trine Søndergaard. Stand is an advertisement-free photographic journal showcasing the work and thoughts of various contemporary photographers from all areas of the world. Submissions of the series are welcome at info@urbanautica.com or directly on our facebook page. Steve Bisson curator and art director of Urbanautica will also be selecting works for future exhibitions. The selection is made on series (full project). Yet we accept single images to share with our readers here on facebook… Thank you all and best wishes!!!