Recap of 2023 Exhibition and Its Travels

Fondazione AEM and its AEMuseum was the last setting of the traveling exhibition AIPAI PHOTO EXHIBITION 23|24, the photographic exhibition promoted and organized by the Italian Association for Industrial Archaeological Heritage in collaboration with: Olivetti Historical Archives Association, DICEA – Sapienza University of Rome, Do.co.mo.mo Italia, AEM Foundation, ISEC Foundation, Maire Foundation, musil Foundation, RoMe Museum Exhibition, Photography Network and TICCIH Italia – International Committee for the Conservation of Industrial Heritage.

The exhibition was previously shown at the San Bartolomeo Iron Museum in Brescia and the Hydroelectric Power Museum in Cedegolo.

A finissage of the exhibition was held on Thursday, October 3, at 6 p.m., with the participation of all the institutions that promoted the project and the winning and mentioned photographers. It was an opportunity to listen live to an ad hoc lecture by photographer Giampietro Agostini on the complex relationship between photography and industry.

The exhibition will feature the winning, mentioned and selected shots from the second edition of the AIPAI PHOTO CONTEST, the photo contest created by the Italian Association for Industrial Archaeological Heritage to raise awareness and promote the culture of industry, the memory of work, and the architectural, technological and landscape heritage of industrial archaeology.The exhibition route starts with the winning work “Soft Machine” by Nicola Bertellotti; architect Peter Davey defined Soft Machine as those constructions that, although based on top of the most advanced high-tech, have soft characteristics, that is, qualities that are not only materially mechanical, but culturally and aesthetically expressive. The author sought to give a visual representation of this concept by photographing architectures in which there was a balance between invention and design, between seriality and uniqueness. Perhaps only in the wrecks of industrial archaeology will it be possible to find the charm of an “architectural imaginary,” that is, of that mythopoetic quality that was present in so many great buildings of antiquity.

The review continues with the project “The casket” by the young Claudia Mencarelli winner of the Patrons of Young Talents Under 35 Award, dedicated to the Ex Alc.Este distillery in Ferrara, this photographer – declares the jury – offers us an artist’s look at industrial architecture and returns a profound vision on the possible protection of this heritage where in the details nature emerges. And everything is wrapped in soft, warm color in this visual “treasure chest” of memory and the unnoticed. The precise, clear and poetic focus of the photographs of these spaces of a former distillery in Ferrara, witnesses of a bygone era, give a strong narrative value to the entire photographic project.It will also be possible to admire the photographic projects awarded a special mention: “(Re)FineArt” by Carlo D’Orta, where metaphysical research defined by details, close-up cuts and attention to propose a strongly aesthetic image, and “The future does not breach this wall. Walls, gates, ruins, visions” by Luigi d’Aponte, the author proposes an original reading of the legacy of the industry of the former ILVA-Italsider Bagnoli, hidden by high walls that hint at the reality of a suspended and unresolved space between what is no more and a present that fails to make itself a future.

The exhibition continues with the aforementioned works, “The former Salvati Tobacco Factory: a monument to work” by Andrea Martino, which transfigures Eboli’s industrial ruin into a “venerable structure” made of pronounced verticalisms and mighty masonry members, and “Canal de Castilla” by Nicola Cavallera, a project that captures with solemn clarity the industrial life of the Canal de Castilla, bringing out a unique landscape in terms of richness of evidence from a rather common past.Also on display are selected shots by Chiara Cevales, Roberto Ciocchetti, Paolo Felletti Spadazzi, Fabrizio Fiscaletti, Milvia Morocutti, Giovanni Peressotti, Francesca Pompei, Alvise Raimondo, Roberta Vassallo, and Claudio Zanirato.