EVERYBODY TALKS: Communities and identities in comparison

Carlo Bevilacqua’s photography, as always, starts from a socio-anthropological investigation. The shots in the exhibition are an extract of the various projects the artist has realised over the last five years around the world, some of which were later translated into two wonderful photographic books.

Bevilacqua’s series includes photographs from Utopia, dreaming the impossible, a book published by Crowdbooks, and into the silence, Eremiti del terzo millenio, published by Intento Edizioni, Islam in Cuba, Queer Divine, The third Gender in the Zapotec land, The Irish walking people. Bevilacqua’s work is the result of his visual journey made as a photographer in recent years in India and Singapore, in Cuba, Mexico and Vancouver Island, through Europe and the United States. Bevilacqua explores the world of contemporary ‘utopian communities’ in the most extended and social sense of the term: communities that are alternative, spiritual, artistic, hippie, environmentalist. His work starts from the attempt to define the meaning of ‘utopia’ today.
The project documents and seeks to understand how these communities have evolved and how they have been able to survive the pressure of the standardizing culture that dominates today’s society. The narrative on the Queer communities, which are still very much discriminated against in India, Mexico as well as among the Native North Americans, is another heartfelt topic of the artist, whose photographs go beyond the simplest meaning of gender identity and sexual choices. Bevilacqua’s photographs are stories of identity and memory of the “third gender” through cultures, ancient rituals and religions.

Keila Guilarte’s photographs are part of a visual reportage realised between the island of Cuba and Morocco since 2017 until today. Keila, who has always paid great attention to the themes of identity and social belonging, presents refined artistic shots of people, customs and traditions that mingle in images in which the photographer seems to peer through a keyhole into hidden identities and communities. The photos dedicated to the women of Maghreb communities, taken in Tafza, Tidli, Marrakech and Medina, capture the essence of daily life, the beauty of its people and places. The strong, contrasting lights, colours and shadows are the real protagonists of these emotional shots that express the identity of these people. Next to these images taken in Morocco, reappear visions of Cuba, dear to the artist, as linked to her photographic memory and childhood. The photographs in the exhibition are part of Mi Tierra, her first book, published by Silvana Editoriale in 2022. The photographer discreetly introduce the viewer to the daily intimacy of the Cuban community and the endless energy of its people, giving a reflection on these places and on the strong identity of its population, still preserved although profound and painful cultural changes.

The chapiteau, the circus tent, is the ‘hat’ under which the heterogeneous and colourful circus tribe gathers and moves. This is where Gianluigi Di Napoli’s gaze stops, creating an intense visual journey that offers the viewer the authentic personality of the circus fantasy world and the jugglers. Through the viewfinder of his camera, the artist recounts the consecrated place where the ritual of the show takes place, and where the identity of the body becomes a true liturgy, intended as an unifying element and fundamental reference for the whole life, the growth and the status of the different family groups that revolve around it. The circus world is a living organism, a community with a strong identity and belonging, whose elements live in close contact sharing spaces, jargon, experiences, strong emotions, and common memories, as well as powerful bonds of blood and extended, yet paradoxically circumscribed kinship.
The three works on display are the synthesis and the fulcrum of the artist’s research – research, the artist has been carrying out for more than ten years and from which the photographic books Circus Life – Everynight, all around the World (published by Stemmle), and A Poet in Action, David Larible (published by Damiani), an anthology of images dedicated to the world’s most famous clown, were born.

With his latest project Nel cuore di Saltimbanco. Viaggio sotto la pelle del Cirque du Soleil, which has become Saltimbanco’s travelling exhibition in Europe, the artist documents the natural evolution of the traditional circus and its contrasts the magical and spectacular entrance of artists into the synthetic ring of the world’s most famous circus group as well as the silence of individuals sleeping in make-up and dressed in dreamlike costumes that unexpectedly come to life on a glittering stage .