Please join us for an evening with photographer Marco Delogu, also currently director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London, publisher of Punctum Press and founder of FotoGrafia, the international photofestival in Rome.
Marco will be presenting his latest photobook Asinara, published by Punctum Press, in conversation with Fiammetta Rocco, Editor of Books and Arts at The Economist, and with writer, film producer and director of Prix Pictet, Michael Benson.
Asinara is the photographic exploration of an island off the north western tip of Sardinia. Now completely abandoned and a natural reserve, the island used to house a quarantine station and several generations of penitentiaries.
As the novelist Edoardo Albinati writes in the text accompanying the book, "... in the images that Delogu has created, that which should be unheimlich, unfamiliar, or even distressing, because it is immersed in darkness, instead reveals itself a poetic set for a midsummer night’s dream, where the vibration and commotion of life have magically dwindled, the white roads are barely visible, the danger signals have been turned o because there is no longer any danger, and men and animals can roam free and without fear...."
Marco Delogu says about his project: "...I chose to work on Asinara because of its history and geography. When I was a child, the island was de- scribed to me as a sort of hell, and as a boy I was struck by the stories of a family friend, a lawyer who de- fended Renato Curcio and Rafaele Cutolo and went to meet them on the island. Later, commencing in 1997, when I was working at Rebibbia penitentiary for the portraits of my Captivity series, I met a series of prison- ers who had been on Asinara, and heard the story of the Fornelli riots from their mouths. I hadn’t been to Sar- dinia for many years, and for my photographic ‘return’ I chose an island that I didn’t know, so full of painful memories that contrast with the enormous sense of beauty and freedom perceived there now..."
Thu 8 Mar, 18.30 Conversation in the Cafe, followed by a Book Signing in the Bookshop.
Free event, no Booking.
