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Finissage 16 gennaio 17.30

Il lavoro e l’immagine dell’accoglienza 

con:

Mauro Storti, coordinatore progetto SPRAR SdS Firenze;

Elisa Sensi, facilitatrice linguistica SPRAR P.A.C.I. Firenze;

Roberta Sartor, phd in Etnopsichiatria, Psicologia e Scienze Cognitive;

Erika Cellini, docente di Sociologia delle migrazioni e Metodi di ricerca per le Scienze sociali, UNIFI

Project realized and produced during an artistic residence at MAD, curated by Gabriele Pantaleo

Mohamed Keita’s residence at MAD Murate Art District focusing on images of institutional integration and volunteering in the media. The project took shape through visits to reception centres based in the Florence area. There, Mohamed Keita took the shots on display in this exhibition, which offer a different representation of otherness; a divergence that is not only the subject of our gaze and thoughts, but also leads us to a different way of thinking and looking.

_ Nowadays the images are so many and widespread to be unquantifiable. The speed that characterizes the visual and cognitive fruition in digital media makes their approach increasingly detached and fleeting. Starting from this observation, the exhibition is designed with the aim of creating a time for the image, citing the composition of the medieval and renaissance altarpieces. The exhibition, without captions, wants to show itself as a visual story, in which the viewer’s thought can find space to explore.

_ The first works on show are a series of shots that frame architectural details; the spaces introduce the story, capturing the look with a simple chromatic effect. But the man immediately begins to be evoked with the presence of some objects such as clothes stretched out in the sun. The exhibition continues with a dialogue between portraits of the guests and details of the places where they live, ending with a diptych of portraits. Mohamed avoids producing pietistic or stereotyped portraits, he prefers to portray people in their individual humanity and he doesen’t want to tell their stories. You need to go beyond piety to accept otherness.

_ The relationship between geometric structures and portraits is a stylistic and narrative choice of the photographer, who create the composition to capture the gaze, to push it to pause and to take time. This shots activates a thought that does not stop at the surface but is able to savor the message of the image, to discover its true content.

 

In the residency survey were also created two ‘tales’, here exposed, which try to look from inside the world of SPRAR and volunteering, accompanied by images of Aboubacar Kourouma, guest of a reception centre.

 

Nel pensiero, nello sguardo_ Il rapporto tra le strutture geometriche e i volti è una precisa scelta stilistica e narrativa del fotografo, che non crea immagini da osservare soltanto nella loro bellezza formale, dimentiche del contesto e dei soggetti. Al contrario la composizione è il mezzo attraverso il quale catturare lo sguardo, spingerlo a soffermarsi e a prendersi del tempo; per attivare un pensiero che non si fermi alla superficie ma sia in grado di assaporare il messaggio dell’immagine, scoprirne il vero contenuto.

 

A margine dell’indagine di residenza sono stati creati anche due ‘racconti’, qui esposti, che cercano di guardare da dentro il mondo degli SPRAR e del volontariato, accompagnati da immagini di Aboubacar Kourouma, ospite di un centro di seconda accoglienza.

Mohamed Keita

Mohamed Keita was born in Côte d’Ivoire in 1993. At the age of 14, he left his country in the middle of a civil war to travel alone between Guinea, Mali, Algeria and Libya, where he embarked to cross the Mediterranean. After landing in Malta, he managed to reach Italy in 2010. When he arrived in Rome, at the age of 17, he lived on the street for a few months and began to attend the Civico Zero day care centre for minors in Savethechildren, where he was given his first camera.
He lives and works in Rome where he teaches photography at the Civico Zero center. In 2017 he opened a workshop for street children in Mali.

Main exhibitions and awards:

  • “Piedi, scarpe, bagagli”, Camera dei Deputati, Roma, 2012
  • “Ritratti”, XII Festival Internazionale di Roma, MACRO, Roma, 2014
  • Premio ‘young/old photographer’ PHC Capalbio fotografia, 2015
  • “Desperate crossing” mostra di Mohamed Keita e Paolo Pellegrin, Istituto italiano di cultura di New York, 2016
  • “Par l’errance”, Centro d’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, 2018
  • “Rothko in Lampedusa”, mostra collettiva organizzata da UNHCR, Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi, Venezia, 2019
Il Progetto è realizzato nell’ambito di Toscanaincontemporanea 2019 con il sostegno di Regione Toscana e Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze

With the contribution of

 

In collaboratoin with

With the partnerhip of