BY GAIA MUSACCHIO
1. Tell us about your approach to photography. How it all started? What are your memories of your first shots?
When I was young, maybe ten years old or less, I used to ask my father if I could take some photographs with his reflex, an Olympus OM 2. After having taught me how to focus with the camera and some other useful techniques, I started to take the very first shots or, at least, I tried. This happened mainly during mountain excursions, family parties and on other similar occasions when my father carried his camera. I think that these first almost casual and playful experiences are an important basis for my photographic education.
© Giacomo Streliotto
After these early experiences, my parents gave me a small compact camera, but during high school I did not use it very often. However, in those years my interest in art and images in general increased. I then decided to enroll in the degree course in Visual Arts at IUAV, in Venice, to pursue these interests and find new ones. I did my first photographic project during a course with Marco Zanta. The project was a series of photos which described different aspects of a small post-industrial area near Venice.
2. How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?
If I think about the first photographs I took when I was a child I believe it obvious to think that my research has evolved based on the experiences, the influences different types of images had on me, and the studies I carried out. What still remains now, however, it is a sort of playful approach to reality through photography. Then, while on my very first photographic projects at university, many things have evolved. Particularly in the last three years of university, I explored various features of photography and tried to find the best way to put together all the influences I have acquired through those years. Influences that come from the study of different photographers’ works, some artistic research projects, and a range of other things, such as exhibitions, books, memories, places, everyday life experiences, etc. Trying to put together all the influences that you have been exposed to in order to create something personal and original it is certainly not that easy. This is still something that I try to do and it will surely be a constant feature of my work.
© Giacomo Streliotto
3. Tell us about your educational path. Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts at IUAV and then you got a Master’s degree in Cultural Heritage Photography at ISIA in Urbino. What are your best memories of your studies. What was your relationship with photography at that time?
As I said before, I decided to enroll in the bachelor degree course in Visual Arts to deepen my interests and learn more about arts. At university, we attended many frontal lectures, and also workshops where we were asked to develop tasks according to a theme or specific guidelines. To complete those tasks, I used photography most of the times, as it came very easy. It was the photographic medium that I felt more comfortable to work with. So, after having gone through this three-year experience, I decided to improve my technical and theoretical skills in photography by enrolling in the second-cycle degree course in Cultural Heritage Photography at the ISIA in Urbino.
© Giacomo Streliotto
Here I assimilated the basic principles of studio photography and how to shoot various cultural heritage subjects (outdoor an indoor shooting) by employing a wide range of techniques. I acquired a great number of photo editing techniques, and learned how to work better with analogue and digital photography. I also had the possibility to attend lessons and workshops held by important authors and photographers, which helped me to better understand my work and know how to better develop a project. I have a lot of nice memories of my studies, but I think the best ones are about the experiences and views I shared with some people.
4. What were the courses that you were passionate about and which have remained meaningful for you.
During the years at IUAV, the lessons of Antonello Frongia and Guido Guidi have been very important and formative thanks to their multidisciplinary teaching approach. I also remember with great pleasure a course with René Gabri, in which we were encouraged to exchange our views on various issues such as culture, politics and art, starting from philosophical texts and personal experiences. I did other important courses at ISIA, which have been useful. Those courses help me to improve my technical skills and learn how to better “read” an image or a photographic project.
© Giacomo Streliotto
5. Any professor or teacher that has allowed you to better understand your work?
I have been lucky to work under the guidance of some very motivating and inspirational figures at IUAV and ISIA. All of them, in different ways, have helped me to improve my skills, to change some points of view, to better understand my work. One of the last and important teachers I met has been Luca Capuano. He encouraged me to change some features of my work and try different ways to carry out a photographic project. He also had always some good advice which improved my technical and artistic skills.
© Giacomo Streliotto
6. You’ve participated as well to workshops, with photographers like Franco Vaccari, Mario Cresci and Guido Guidi. Tell us about these experiences in general and how they affect your personal research.
In 2008, I attended a workshop held by Guido Guidi, which has been very important for my education. In this workshop, Guido helped us to reflect on photography and other issues related to representation. Between other important teachings, this experience taught me how to carefully observe the reality that surrounds me, how to deal with the less considered features of the landscape, such as marginal areas and industrial ones. What Guido Guidi thaugt me has influenced my work and also some of the formal aspects of my photos. However, I am constantly working in order to find my own point of view. On the other hand, the workshops of Franco Vaccari and Mario Cresci have been less influential, but still very useful. They help me to reason about the photographic medium, the relationship between photography and society and the importance of photo archives.
© Giacomo Streliotto
7. By looking at your bio I can see that you’ve been featured in some exhibitions. Did you also get the chance to publish something of your own work?
Actually, I have exhibited my works only a few times, because I have not focused on displaying that much. I have recently felt more comfortable with showing my projects mainly through my website. I am also looking for different ways to exhibit my work. I believe that publishing a photographic book is probably the best way to present a project. I still have not got the chance to do so.
8. About your work now. How would you describe your personal research in general?
I always try to represent with photography the complexity of certain places. I am interested in the complexity of landscapes and in the interaction between the human being and the environment, as much as in the ambiguities of photography, as a means of representation. Taking photographs is an activity that constantly teaches me how to have a different attitude towards things and pay close attention to everything around me. A fundamental feature of my work, especially in the last years, has been the activity of walking. By walking slowly in a place you can focus on what you usually do not watch. Another important feature of my research is to look at other authors’ works, which are not necessarily photographic projects.
© Giacomo Streliotto
9. Do you have any preferences in terms of cameras and format?
It depends on the project I am going to work on, but I tend not to have any preferences. I have used different types of analogic and digital cameras. As far as the format is concerned, I prefer the 6x7 format, but I also like the 6x6 one.
10. Tell us about ‘La Brenta’.
The idea of a photographic analysis of the river called Brenta, which is located in the northeast of Italy, originates from my affection for this river and the places it crosses. I did not want to report the environmental issues that affect the river and I did not want to map the territory or to catalogue the artistic heritage and the natural one. My aim was to give the image of the river while exploring various features. For this reason, I started by reading the history of the river that is strictly connected to the history of the Veneto region, which is now characterized by what might be called an urbanistic chaos. It is a tangle of small and medium urban centers, industrial and commercial areas which, with their gradual expansion, have almost deleted the difference between the urban dimension and the agricultural/natural one.
© Giacomo Streliotto
Then I visited various museums, examined their material, and studied archives and private collections. In so doing I retrieved images and historical photographs, which are used as objet trouvé inside the project. Pictures which maintain the folds, the cracks or the stains, features that help to enhance the “photography object”, its materiality and the value that it acquires in the photo sequence. It is a sequence composed of photographs taken during the various routes I have followed along the course of the river. The series of images is not organized on a thematic index, nor according to a precise travel itinerary, but composed from scattered fragments linked together by a network of analogies. It is an attempt to trace a new possible path through images and find specific characteristics and identities of the landscape crossed by the river.
11. Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and emerging, that influenced you in some way?
As I said above, what Guido Guidi taught me has really influenced my work, but many other photographers have done so, such as Robert Adams and, in general, all the photographers of the “New Topographics” exhibition, Luigi Ghirri, Michael Schmidt, the Düssledorf School, just to name a few.
© Giacomo Streliotto
12. Three books of photography that you recommend?
There are many photography books that I could recommend. I list the first ones that come to mind:
Michael Schmidt, ‘89/90’
Guido Guidi, ‘Varianti’
Paul Graham, ‘A Shimmer of Possibilities’
13. Is there any show you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?
Recently, I have visited the Foam Museum in Amsterdam. I believe that “America by Car” by Lee Friedlander and the installation of a young photographer called Peter Puklus were interesting projects.
14. Projects that you are working on now and plans for the future?
I am thinking about to start a new work and I have some ideas. I would like to develop a project in the area around the Monte Grappa, a famous area which has been a strategic point in the first World War. I am interested in the landscape of the mountain, but I would also consider some of the historical photographs and written memories of soldiers.
© Giacomo Streliotto
Recently I have been involved for collaborations on other different projects and I am looking for let my work known.