Foundations of a Mirage

Finalista al Gomma Grant 2022 /  by Filippo Venturi

Il mio lavoro “Foundations of a Mirage” è fra i finalisti del Gomma Photography Grant, sezione Documentary!
Qui la lista dei finalisti: https://thegommagrant.com

Foundations of a Mirage
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2021 - Ongoing

2021 is an important year for the United Arab Emirates, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its and hosting EXPO 2020 (postponed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic) in Dubai, the country’s most important city, considered the “New York of the Persian Gulf”.
The fate of the UAE took a drastic turn with the discovery of oil in Abu Dhabi in 1958 and in Dubai in 1966. Even today, over 85% of the country’s economy is based on exports of natural resources. In recent years, the construction boom has driven the country’s government to invest in very expensive infrastructure, in Dubai itself, chasing various records, such as the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building; the Dubai World Central International Airport, the most expensive airport ever built; the three Palm Islands, the largest artificial islands in the world; the Dubai Mall, the largest shopping mall in the world; Dubailand, an amusement park that is supposed be twice the size of Disney World (which, however, has suffered severe delays due to the recent economic crisis).
The population of the UAE is around 10 million, of which 11% are citizens of the United Arab Emirates and 89% are foreigners (mostly immigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh).
Although for some time now the country, also through the EXPO, has been attempting to tackle important and current issues such as sustainability (accessibility and resilience of environmental resources, energy and water), in practice it relies on a system that has very little that is sustainable and modern about it, i.e. the exploitation of low-cost migrant labour to create works that aim to be the largest/tallest/most impressive etc. to the world, whose goal is to support a purely Western type of consumerism, even at the cost of distorting the traditions and culture of the country itself, resulting in an artificial, contradictory reality.
Thanks to its reflective surfaces and the use of futuristic technologies, Dubai’s show of modernity can dazzle and distract from the actual situation, where capitalism reigns supreme. Even so, however, it is not difficult to notice the army of workers ready to clean and disinfect anywhere suitable for hosting visitors, including the streets, or in charge of directing tourists and satisfying their every need.
The dark side of Dubai has many facets, including that of being a tax haven capable of attracting people and money whose origins are “hazy” to say the least, but it is on a human level that the cruellest face of this reality can be found, where workers are treated like commodities, also through what is known as the kafala, a system of exploitation that shares some characteristics with human trafficking. The result is therefore a form of contemporary slavery that goes unnoticed because to visitors, Dubai appears to be a wonderland, whose hardly “sustainable” foundations, however, they fail to see.

PhMuseum Days 2022 - International Photography Festival /  by Filippo Venturi

Nella mostra collettiva dei 22 fotografi selezionati dall’Open Call di PhMuseum Days, troverà posto anche il mio lavoro Foundations of a Mirage! Di seguito tutte le informazioni.

Si apre a Bologna, il 23 settembre2022 la seconda edizione di PhMuseum Days Festival internazionale di fotografia che ha per tema Today Is Yesterday’s Tomorrow, un’occasione per riflettere sul potere delle azioni e sul rapporto tra passato, presente e futuro e sul forte momento di cambiamento che l’umanità sta vivendo. Promosso da Il festival è promosso da PhMuseum, una piattaforma che promuove gli autori e la fotografia contemporanea dal 2012. L’evento si terrà presso lo Spazio Bianco di DumBO a Bologna, un padiglione post-industriale di 1600 metri quadrati che ospiterà mostre, presentazioni, uno spazio dedicato all’editoria fotografica e un’area relax all’aperto. L’evento sarà un terreno di gioco per i professionisti e un momento di scoperta per chi vuole avvicinarsi alla fotografia e alle arti visive. Il programma prevede 13 mostre individuali, un’installazione collettiva, letture di portfolio, proiezioni, performance e uno spazio dedicato all’editoria indipendente.

Le mostre sono:

  • Asphodel Songs di Agathe Kalfas & Mathias Benguigui che propone una nuova lettura delle questioni contemporanee dell’isola di Lesbo, mettendo insieme tracce del passato, mitologia e memoria collettiva della migrazione.

  • Good Hope di Carla Liesching, che guarda ai giardini di Capo di Buona Speranza in Sudafrica – un luogo storico all’apice dell’Impero, oggi epicentro dei movimenti di resistenza anticoloniale.

  • How To Raise A Hand di Angelo Vignali, 313 stampe in bianco e nero delle dita del padre dell’artista.

  • La Linea D’Acqua di Sara Palmieri che affronta il tema della memoria attraverso una ricerca intima e metafisica sulla caducità delle cose.

  • Mythic Humanoids di Arvida Bystrom che si concentra su concetti quali corpo, identità e auto-rappresentazione.

  • Neuromantic di Ana Vallejo che rappresenta la ricerca interiore innestata dall’isolamento del Covid19.

  • Nothing Personal di Nikita Teryoshin che presenta l’opposto di un campo di battaglia, un enorme parco giochi.

  • Nuke di Marcelo Brodsky, artista argentino che si concentra sull’immagine di un’esplosione nucleare.

  • The Merge di Sara, Peter & Tobias, che riflette sul dubbio se il mondo sia reale o un’illusione costruita.

  • The Weight Of The Word di Piero Martinello & Piero Casentini, lavoro di documentazione sui casi di eponimia (uso di indicare con il nome di un personaggio illustre o comunque notevole, un periodo storico, un movimento politico, artistico, letterario) di nove medici e ricercatori nazisti.

  • Ukrzaliznytsia di Julie Poly cattura l’essenza stessa del viaggio sui treni ucraini.

  • Umbai di Munirah Almehri che immagina il futurismo queer nel contesto kuwaitiano.

C’è poi la mostra collettiva di 22 fotografi selezionati dall’Open Call di PhMuseum Days.
Fotografi selezionati: Allan Salas, Andrés Mario de Varona, Anton Kuehnhackl, Antone Dolezal, Arne Piepke, Austin Cullen, Christopher Valentine, Claudia Fuggetti, Disha Patil, Eleana Konstantellos André, Emilia Martin, Filippo Venturi, Gabriele Cecconi, Henri Kisielewski, Hiro Tanaka, Hyunmin Ryu, Jaclyn Wright, Jake Mein, Jan Richard Heinicke, Kendra Ward, Laura Sisterò, Lina van Hulle, Lorenzo Maccotta, Luciana Demichelis, Lukasz Kubicki, Margarita Valdivieso Beltran, Margaux Corda, Melissa Catanese, Mirko Viglino, Ngadi Smart, Niall O'Brien, Pang Hai, Parker Bryant-Carty, Paulo Simão, Ryan Pfluger, Selina Disera, Tatiana Grigorenko, Vincent Forstenlechner, Vivian Keulards, Jimmi Wing Ka Ho, Yi Hsuan Lai.

Info
Now at its second edition, this year’s theme of the festival is Today is Yesterday's Tomorrow, meant as an occasion to reflect on the strong moment of change we are living.

When
Friday 23.09 to Sunday 25.09 from 10am to 10pm
Thursday 29.09 to Sunday 02.10 from 10am to 10pm

Where
Spazio Bianco, DumBO
Via Camillo Casarini 19
40131 Bologna
Google Map

How to get here
By planes
Bologna has an international airport 20-minutes from Dumbo.
By trains
The station is 5-minutes from the venue with high-speed trains serving Rome, Milan and Florence.
By car
The motorway is 10-minutes from the venue with local parking available.

Contacts
Support
Have questions? our support team would be happy to help. support@phmuseum.com
Press
Contact our dedicated press channel.
Press contacts

Spazio Bianco, DumBO, in Via Camillo Casarini 19, Bologna (italy)

Nomination al Leica Oskar Barnack Award /  by Filippo Venturi

Il mio lavoro "Foundations of a mirage" è stato nominato al "Leica Oskar Barnack Award" di quest'anno.

L’essere stato selezionato per questo premio prestigioso è, per me, un grande onore e piacere e un ulteriore stimolo nel continuare a lavorare con il massimo impegno!

Maggiori info su lavoro qui: https://www.filippoventuri.photography/blog/dubai-expo-mirage

Questo invece è il sito ufficiale del premio: https://www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com/en

Foundations of a Mirage /  by Filippo Venturi

Foundations of a Mirage
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2021 - Ongoing

2021 is an important year for the United Arab Emirates, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its and hosting EXPO 2020 (postponed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic) in Dubai, the country’s most important city, considered the “New York of the Persian Gulf”.

The fate of the UAE took a drastic turn with the discovery of oil in Abu Dhabi in 1958 and in Dubai in 1966. Even today, over 85% of the country’s economy is based on exports of natural resources. In recent years, the construction boom has driven the country’s government to invest in very expensive infrastructure, in Dubai itself, chasing various records, such as the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building; the Dubai World Central International Airport, the most expensive airport ever built; the three Palm Islands, the largest artificial islands in the world; the Dubai Mall, the largest shopping mall in the world; Dubailand, an amusement park that is supposed be twice the size of Disney World (which, however, has suffered severe delays due to the recent economic crisis).

The population of the UAE is around 10 million, of which 11% are citizens of the United Arab Emirates and 89% are foreigners (mostly immigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh).

Although for some time now the country, also through the EXPO, has been attempting to tackle important and current issues such as sustainability (accessibility and resilience of environmental resources, energy and water), in practice it relies on a system that has very little that is sustainable and modern about it, i.e. the exploitation of low-cost migrant labour to create works that aim to be the largest/tallest/most impressive etc. to the world, whose goal is to support a purely Western type of consumerism, even at the cost of distorting the traditions and culture of the country itself, resulting in an artificial, contradictory reality.

Thanks to its reflective surfaces and the use of futuristic technologies, Dubai’s show of modernity can dazzle and distract from the actual situation, where capitalism reigns supreme. Even so, however, it is not difficult to notice the army of workers ready to clean and disinfect anywhere suitable for hosting visitors, including the streets, or in charge of directing tourists and satisfying their every need.

The dark side of Dubai has many facets, including that of being a tax haven capable of attracting people and money whose origins are “hazy” to say the least, but it is on a human level that the cruellest face of this reality can be found, where workers are treated like commodities, also through what is known as the kafala, a system of exploitation that shares some characteristics with human trafficking. The result is therefore a form of contemporary slavery that goes unnoticed because to visitors, Dubai appears to be a wonderland, whose hardly “sustainable” foundations, however, they fail to see.