IN PONTA D’PI is a line from a poem by Nevio Spadoni chosen as the exhibition’s title because it reflects an attitude shared by the fifteen participating artists—all of whom belong, in some way, to what might be termed a Romagna school of photography. This school has achieved extraordinary results through the creative inquiry of photographers spanning different generations. For all of them, Guido Guidi has been a mentor and, above all, a fellow traveler; he is now internationally recognized as one of the most important photographers, celebrated both for his tireless artistic research and for his teaching, conducted primarily between Ravenna and Venice.
The exhibition also highlights specific photographic projects that originated in the Romagna region from 1986 onwards, including Figli del deserto (Fusignano), Architettur& and Spazio fotografico Gianluca Liverani (Ravenna, spanning the late 1990s and early 2000s), Lugo Land (2004, Lugo), NASTYNASTY (2008, Ravenna), Mycamera and Osservatorio fotografico (2009, Ravenna), and the Scuola elementare di fotografia (2023, Ravenna).
In short, for decades, Romagna has been a highly active photographic “workshop.” It is a workshop—as the exhibition’s subtitle suggests, referencing Roberto Longhi’s essay on Ferrarese painting—characterized by both the presence of exceptional individual artists and a clear inclination toward collective projects, embodying the best spirit of the region’s cooperative tradition. It is a workshop that has shaped a way of seeing—one that curator Silvia Loddo likes to describe as “dialectal” in the highest sense of the word. This term alludes to a language that has nurtured both extraordinary poets and equally extraordinary photographers, all united by the ability to capture the beauty of the ordinary with a light, unobtrusive touch. The exhibition is curated by Davide Caroli, director of the Museo delle Cappuccine, in collaboration with Silvia Loddo—an art historian and photography scholar currently directing the Pinacoteca Carlo Contini in Oristano. Loddo trained in Bologna, Ravenna, Paris, and Siena, and has long closely followed the photography scene in Romagna, curating projects dedicated to photographic observation.
