Highest artist residency in the Dolomites for four young photographers

Four young photographers, students of theAcademy of Fine Arts of Bergamo, had the opportunity to experience six days at almost 3,000 meters above sea level in the scenery of Lagazuoi to capture with their lens the true essence of the Dolomites. The Lagazuoi Photo Award, the first curatorial project of Lagazuoi EXPO Dolomiti, the high-tech exhibition center located at the arrival of the Lagazuoi cable car, between Cortina d’Ampezzo and Alta Badia, this year proposes a completely renewed formula that targets young people.

"Lagazuoi Photo Award was born in 2020 to break down the clichés of a mountain iconography too often focused on the past, while these territories are carriers of innovation and the future," explained Stefano Illing, engineer and creator of the cultural hub. "This year, with Lagazuoi Photo Award - New Talents, we want to look even further ahead, and so we are turning to young people: let’s make room for them, because they will be the ones to sow the seeds of an aesthetic and cultural revolution."

Thanks to the partnership with the Accademia Carrara of Bergamo, the competition is renewed and opened to other artistic forms: in addition to photography, it leaves room for video and sound. Four students from the institute were selected, through a call for entries, to experience six days to spend in the field. They staked out to capture the light of sunset and sunrise, experienced conditions that were at times extreme, but most importantly, they slowly assimilated the beauty of the place, becoming attuned to the peaks. The projects they created testify to this unique process of learning and immersion.

The works were analyzed by a high-profile jury composed of professionals and experts: Elisabetta Lattanzio Illy, photographer and journalist, CEO and founder of the photo agency Picture of Change, Francesco Pedrini, director of the Accademia di Belle Arti G. Carrara in Bergamo and Leonie Radine, curator of the Museion in Bolzano, Stefano Illing, creator of the Lagazuoi EXPO Dolomiti, Elisa Calcamuggi, marketing manager of the DMO Dolomiti.

The winner of this edition is Beniamino Sciabica, with his 2752 meters from sea level, a video in which he approaches, in a poetic, aesthetic and ironic way, some contradictory aspects of the idea of high mountains. The presence of man, architecture, history, and technology provide a counterpoint to the imposing and wonderful nature of these places.

According to the jurors, the winner was able to show the complexity and ambiguity within the tangles of humanity, nature and technology in the mountain landscape, as well as the parallel realities of tourism and work, leisure and business. Capturing both the silence or subtle melodies of nature and the noise of restaurants and cable cars, which create a dynamic rhythm of the mountain with all its different temporalities and speeds. The quality of the photography is partly spectacular and highly professional, and then still very enigmatic, mundane or deliberately amateurish, capturing different perspectives and creating a rich and complex visual and auditory landscape of harmonies and dissonances.

The award ceremony and exhibition opening is scheduled for September 2, 2022 at 3 p.m. at Lagazuoi EXPO Dolomites.

Pictured, Lagazuoi cable car. Photo by Stefano Zardini

Highest artist residency in the Dolomites for four young photographers

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