Join photographer Matt Black for a five-day, intensive workshop designed to sharpen your relationship to photography and the world. Matt will guide you to think critically about your work and consider your vision, your voice, and its purpose.
This five-day class is broken up into two sections. The first part is a four-day intensive workshop where students will be designing their own projects.
Opening: november 14th at 7 pm @Officine Fotografiche Roma
Time Zones:
“For me, photography is the missing dot that connects what is deep inside us and we cannot understand or describe, with the world. A connection that transcends and moves through space-time, in unpredictable, mysterious and non-linear ways. A link between reality and love. I believe we take pictures because our inner self wants to reconnect with the cosmos. We want to feel close to people, places, objects and as time goes by, we recognize in them a part of ourselves. With photography, we reveal ourselves to the unknown, while preserving a link to the real. My work depicts my innermost states of fear, desire, affection. Standing in the middle between life and death. In particular, “Over.State” depicts the story of a young and lost person trying to feel free and find love. An emotional exploration of the human condition. An effort to understand how we express freedom, intimacy, closeness; how we seek true connection with the inner self and the other. But also here, for the very first time, I am presenting works that were born before “Over.State”(“Archives”) and works that were born very recently(“Vialattea”). What interests me here is to question coherence and to explore those pivotal moments of <<change>> during the artistic and creative process. And by creating a setting of different <<zones>> I am trying to express and visualize this experience, morphing it into something illusionary linear and diverse which is how we prefer to perceive change over time.
-I.G.
Over.State by Grzegorz Kosmala(publisher, Blow Up Press)
There are many books that discuss the lives of their authors. Thanks to them we can hear the voice of the whole generation, learn about its fears and hopes, worries and joy. But none of these books talks about it in such a visually sophisticated manner as Ilias Georgiadis does in his book debut…
Over.State does not contain any information about the time and place, that makes the book even more universal. We can think, we know its characters, we have met them somewhere on the way. Also, lack of any introduction to the story, an attempt to explain it, gives this book a special dimension: the reader must go through it alone, page by page, must try to understand the meaning of words chaotically written here and there to realise at the end: “This is about me…”
No matter what they depict, the photographs taken by Ilias are magnetic. They absorb you completely, remain in memory for hours after seeing them. And every time you come back to them, they do it again and again, and again…
When looking at the pictures from Over.State, one can get an impression of balancing on the border between reality and dream, life and death, something permanent and ephemeral. These images are like a love poem and Ilias Georgiadis becomes a poet of photography…
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Born in northern Greece, Ilias started experimenting with the photographic medium at the age of 19.
After extensive travels in 2011, he stops his university studies and starts making pictures in an obsessive way.
Ηis main interest focuses on the basis of the current social and interpersonal issues about human nature. An approach based on Europe which started in 2012 in Greece and continues until now.
He is always questioning the body and the mind, always trying to reach and express the limits of oneself within all possible ways.
Ilias’s debut series of work named “Over.State” has been shown in various international festivals, solo and group shows across the world and has been featured in on-line and printed publications.
In 2019, “Over.State” published as a monograph by Blow Up Press(Warsaw). Currently, Ilias is working on his new book titled “Vialattea”.
Dear friends,
after 14 years, we have decided to conclude the extraordinary adventure of the FotoLeggendo Festival.
This was not a last-minute decision. We have long reflected upon the path it has taken and realized that the time was ripe.
FotoLeggendo was the largest undertaking Officine Fotografiche committed to in terms of human and financial resources. It began as portfolio reviews organized by a small association. Throughout the years, it grew into a festival at international level that had the honor of hosting internationally acclaimed photographers from all over the world. The event paired up professional artists with participating photographers in the spirit of initiating a dialogue between professionals and amateurs; it became a place for exchanging views and opinions, and creating informal and personal encounters. The event was free of charge so that everyone had access to it in quest of fostering the art of photography that has been the backbone of Officine Fotografiche since its beginnings.
We are and will always be deeply grateful to everyone who supported us and helped us to grow by participating in the project with their professional expertise and knowledge: historians, photographers, curators, photo editors, journalists, gallery owners, educators, as well as the members of Officine Fotografiche who collaborated unconditionally in organizing exhibitions, hospitality and security.
In particular, we would like to thank the staff at the Boutographies – Rencontres photographique de Montpellier Festival with whom we have collaborated for 11 years in the productive exchange of ideas and exhibitions for the Premio Échange. Special thanks also to the Controchiave Association that has been our partner in every edition of the Festival and the Premio Tabò.
Thank you also to all the international partners we have worked with, including FotoBookFestival di Kassel and Lens Culture, and to the directors of the exhibition spaces that gave life to the festival circuit.
Thank you to the Municipio Roma VIII that, especially at the beginning, supported the event however possible in the difficult task of taking root in the neighborhood.
Thank you to the Istituto Superiore Antincendi (ISA) for welcoming us into their prestigious industrial archeology site for so many years, and the directors of the Museo di Roma in Trastevere and the Centrale Montemartini.
Thank you to the (few) politicians and administrators of the City of Rome and the Regione Lazio who believed our venture – self-financed by a collective – was worth being supported and recognized through resources from small businesses.
And a special thank you to all the visitors who have been with us all these years, encouraging us to strive for better things.
However, notwithstanding all the support and accomplishments we obtained, we have decided to close this experience. After 14 years, the difficulties of the city we live in and its very complex dynamics, has depleted our forces due to the disconnected runaround between bureaucracy, call for bids in limited periods, spaces with little availability and access, and the ever-changing contact personnel who are never very interested in photography to begin with. Maintaining the high level of the festival is not possible for us anymore in both economic terms and the lack of spaces that meet our needs. We also realize that the general public is changing, and we want to find new avenues to stimulate its curiosity and involve it in new initiatives.
Therefore, FotoLeggendo is closing this year but Officine Fotografiche is not, and it has many events programmed at our headquarters and other spaces.
We will continue in our commitment to promote the art of photography and maintain a community for those who are passionate about it and those who have made a career choice out of it.
We will see you soon, because we are developing new opportunities where to meet.
Exhibition opening on friday, january 13th at 7 p.m.
Aliqual is a project that Massimo Mastrorillo started to develop after having returned to L’Aquila for about six years, making the transition from the documentation of the aftermath of the 2009 earthquake to a visual exploration focusing on a shadowy area, where a currently uninhabitable world seems to be coming back to life.
