Parallel Lines: Chiara Bardelli Nonino
I hope parallel universe me is doing OK - Paolo Roversi for Power to the Models - Curated by Jan Hoek
Federica Belli: The language of photography is among the most contemporary languages of our time, due to its versatility and its immediate impact on the viewer. What makes photography such a relevant language in our time?
Chiara Bardelli Nonino: The boom in photography might have to do with the increasingly globalised nature of our society: being all interconnected, we experience a need for immediate communication. We all use visual references, like memes and emojis. Photography though, condenses very complex issues in a small self-contained space, and this makes it a very sophisticated language. Of course, this applies to photographs by visually knowledgeable authors: being a photographer, you know there are varied degrees of sophistication in the photographic language, from a conversational degree to very complex images. I do not think complex photography is universal: not everyone reads it in the same way. Though the immediacy remains available to everybody, reading all the layers depends both on the skill of the photographer and the visual literacy of the viewer.
F.B. Considering this duality, one is left wondering: are we, as a society, properly educated to interpret such complex images? What is the current scenario of visual education and how is it evolving?
C.B.N. As soon as I started working with photography I noticed how little we are taught about how to read images and recognise tools used by photographers in making their point or underlining messages. If you know how to read a photograph, not only you are able to appreciate the entirety of the message passed on by the photographer, but you are also prepared to deal with the propaganda we are overwhelmed by. We never analyzed the photographic language in high school, nobody taught us to read images that weren’t paintings. This is part of a broader issue in terms of visual literacy, at least in the standard Italian curriculum. It would be really important to prepare the future generation to have a critical view on visual language.
F.B. Definitely. While we are prepared to avoid advertisements in textual formats, we often cannot spot them visually. Also, social media demand easily readable photographs. As a result, unless one is really educated to build complex images, it becomes almost impossible to express all the complexities of who we are as individuals.
C.B.N. Our online identity relies heavily on visual language, from our dating sites profiles to our social media accounts. Those who do not work in the creative field do it in a very instinctive way, but from the fake news to the manipulation of bodies and faces, the lack of visual literacy can be quite dangerous.
Paolo Roversi - Studio Luce @ MAR RAVENNA, Molly, Paris 2015 (for Vogue Italia) © Paolo Roversi Courtesy Pace Gallery
F.B. Visual education is definitely important in fashion photography as well, due to its complex layering. At Vogue Italia the idea of fashion photography is constantly expanding: you select photographs that sincerely raise and confront social issues, expanding the borders of what fashion means. How do you balance fashion enough and concerned enough?
C.B.N. Using fashion photography as a form of social commentary has always been in the DNA of Vogue Italia, Franca Sozzani and Emanuele Farneti found a way to produce authoritative fashion imagery while talking about current affairs. I think to balance the two you need to work with photographers that are sincere in the message they want to communicate. False involvement is easily spottable and becomes offensive when dealing with delicate issues. Of course fantasy and escapism are always there, a great fashion photograph has to balance reality and dream in a perfect way.
F.B. Speaking of fashion photography masters you recently curated the Roversi exhibition at MAR. That is a quite different experience with respect to the yearly curation of the Photo Vogue Festival, which involves mainly emerging photographers. How does your approach as curator adapt to such different situations?
C.B.N. What I try to achieve as curator, in both cases, is finding a thread in complex themes. In the case of Roversi, it was about interpreting his oeuvre from a different point of view, shining light to overlooked passages and building a narrative that is true to the artist’s vision while being also somewhat original, unseen. With Photo Vogue we try to work on macro themes that give us the possibility of reflecting on what is happening in the photography field right in that moment. Since I work mainly with collective exhibitions there, you need to show glimpses of artists’ works in contexts that might give a new perspective on them.
Photo Vogue Festival 2021: Reframing History. Akinola Davies Jr. Nuuksio Films Black To Life, 2019
F.B. The theme for the upcoming PhotoVogue Festival is “Reframing History”, with the aim of broadening the narratives that make up our past. In which ways can a more inclusive history broaden our future perspectives as well?
C.B.N. That is one aspect of the exhibition: omitted or misinterpreted stories that have been left out. But in a broader sense it will tackle every alternative view on stories being left out by the mainstream narrative. We want to present a multiplicity of perspectives, being it a reinterpretation of famous paintings or fairy tales, or being a story that deals with an overlooked community. Human beings are storytelling animals that are shaped by and shape reality with stories. We do not just fantasise in dreamscapes, we create daily life and impact our surroundings with stories. We want different points of view on stories that are taken as written in stone: there is always space for a different point of view.
Photo by Scandebergs
Chiara Nonino is the Photo-editor of Vogue Italia and l’Uomo Vogue, in addition to being the editor of the photography channel of Vogue.it and one of the curators of the PhotoVogue Festival, a festival that tackles social and political issues linked with fashion photography.
Federica Belli
