The International FOTOGRAFIA Festival will devote space to such major figures in international photography as Alec Soth, Rinko Kawauchi,Tod Papageorge Sebastian Hau, Francesco Zanot, William Guerrieri, Asako Narahashi, Leonie Hampton, Ferdinand Brueggemann and Serge Plantureux. In a series of readings and conversations, they will voice their thoughts on photography’s contemporary character. The curators (Paul Wombell, Valentina Tanni, Marc Prüst, Rob Hornstra, Tre/Terzi, Marco Delogu and Alessandro Dandini de Sylva) will alternate in a series of discussions of their work and their projects. On the occasion of this tenth edition of the Rome Festival, entitled “Motherland,” a comparison will be made among three other Italian festivals (in Lugo, Rapallo and Villanova Monteleone) that have made a name for themselves for having devoted special attention to new productions around the country. September 23rd, at 17: State of Italy — Emiliano Mancuso The State of Italy is a three-year-long journey through an Italy in critical economic and social conditions, from the immigrant landings on the isle of Lampedusa to the recession in the northeast, from life in the Chamber of Deputies to the bloodshed in the Calabrian town of Rosarno, and so on through the most recent Italian news stories. The photos are by Emiliano Mancuso, working with three journalists: Laura Eduati, Andrea Milluzzi and Angela Mauro. The State of Italy started as a blog (www.reportageita- lia.it) where the various stories were collected stop by stop. It is now a book, edited by Renata Ferri and published by Postcart, with a preface by journalist Lucia Annunziata. The show, organized in collaboration with Officine Fotografiche, features the best of the whole project. It will open on November 7th in Officine Fotografiche’s space. September 23rd, at 18: Japan Talks — Ferdinand Brueggemann, Rinko Kawauchi, Asako Narahashi, 3/3 Rinko Kawauchi’s poetic vision and her discreet way of creating images vested with incredible power seem to proceed — almost literally — by illuminations. Light is the fundamental element for entering Kawauchi’s world: she transforms it into a continuously changing metaphor of our existence. The title of her latest photo book, the first published outside Japan, co-produced by Aperture and other publishers (and by Postcart in Italy), is Illuminance. It assembles photos that Kawauchi has shot over the last fifteen years, some already published in previous books. Photo books are Kawauchi’s most successful mode of expression, and have been since 2002, when she won the prestigious Kimura Ihei Award for two books, Utatane and Hanabi. In her talk, Rinko Kawauchi will explain how her latest work developed and tell the story of her personal and always intimate relationship with books. Asako Narahashi will do an overview of her work, the foundation of her gallery 03fotos, the collaboration with Miyako Ishiuchi for their magazine Main, and her best known publications, Half Awake and Half Asleep in the Water, Getting Closer and Getting Further again, Funiculi Funicula. Ferdinand Brueggemann, photography historian specialized on Japan and co-director of the gallery Priska Pasquer, will gather the views of these two artists in a wider context linked to the peculiar situation that has seen succeed in Japan in the ’90s a large number of women artists (Liquid Dreams – the Rise of Women Photographers in Japan). September 23rd, at 19: Photo Book — Leonie Hampton, Sebastian Hau, Alec Soth, Francesco Zanot Leonie Hampton, Sebastian Hau, Alec Soth, and Francesco Zanot will talk about the photo book from their experiences as photographer, bookseller, publisher and critic. In recent years the phenomenon of self-publishing and the rise of small publishing houses, such as Little Brown Mushroom founded by Soth, have revolutionized the world of photography, supported by festivals as Off print Paris and Photobook Kassel and various blogs on the subject. The conversation will focus on both aspects of the book implementation and promotion, in a time when the book becomes increasingly important in building an author’s identity. September 24th, at 17: Instant Report — William Guerrieri Instant Report is research in progress since 2008, on citizen-participation projects under way in several Italian cities with the aim of involving neighborhood residents who are interested in urban change or in reaching agreed solutions to public-order problems. A sort of micro-analysis of cultural identities and new strategies for managing local political power. Among the cases examined are the former Foundries in Modena (in the 1950s they were the setting for violent clashes with the police, the buildings are now slated for demolition, and the case has rekindled local residents’ will to save them); public-order problems created by the substantial inflow of immigrants in Bologna’s Via del Pratello district, once a model of civil participation; and the destination of decommissioned barracks and large industrial areas in Bologna’s Navile district.The sequence of images is accompanied by information, quotations from public documents, headlines from local newspapers and stock images. September 24th, at 18: Photo Festivals — Salvatore Ligios, Andrea Botto, Luca Nostri Panel discussion between Salvatore Ligios, Andrea Botto, Luca Nostri to make a comparison among three other Italian festivals (in Lugo, Rapallo and Villanova Monteleone) that have made a name for themselves for having devoted special attention to new productions around the country. September 24th, at 19: Core Curriculum — Tod Papageorge Starting from the thoughts recently published by Aperture in Core Curriculum: Writings on Photography, Tod Papageorge will speak about his role in training young generations of artists (Gregory Crewdson and Philip Lorca di Corcia among them) and about the importance of the “Yale School” on the contemporary art scene. Papageorge, a photographer and a professor of photography at the Yale School of Art, is one of the most influential voices in contemporary photography. He has shaped the work and thoughts of generations of artists/photographers. Because of his critical studies, he is recognized as an unusual and illuminating guide for the work of many major figures in 20th-century photography. In this book, he engages with deep critical intuition in discussions with artists such as Eugène Atget, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, Robert Frank (with Walker Evans), Robert Adams and his dear friend Gary Winogrand.