Everything is ready for the seventh edition of Trieste Photo Days. The international festival of urban photography will be held in a circuit of exhibition venues in Trieste, seaside city in North-Eastern Italy, from 17 October to 8 November 2020, with a peak weekend full of exhibitions, meetings and workshops on 23, 24 and 25 October 2020, plus a series of events outside the city.

The festival will bring together dozens of exhibitions by photographers from all around the world for nearly 1,400 photos on display. Guests of the highest level will attend the festival, such as the Italian photojournalist Francesco Cito, the Belgian photographer Alain Schroeder, winner of the World Press Photo 2020, the English Nick Turpin, founder of the famous international collective iN-PUBLiC, the Czech conceptual photographer Miloš Nejezchleb, the Polish street photographer Ania Klosek.

Live streaming from New York, there will also be the two American guest stars Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, Jury presidents of URBAN Photo Awards, who will announce the winners of the contest on Saturday 24 October.

Trieste Photo Days is promoted by the dotART cultural association, in collaboration with the Museums and Libraries Service and the Tourist Promotion, Cultural and Sporting Events Service of the Municipality of Trieste, the Regional Secretariat of the Ministry for cultural heritage and activities and for tourism for Friuli Venezia Giulia, with the contribution of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region and the Kathleen Foreman Casali Charity Foundation, the main partnership of Install.Pro, Unicusano Trieste, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana and Gap, and the artistic direction of Angelo Cucchetto.

Photo Days Tour

This year the festival opens outside the city with the exhibitions of the Photo Days Tour at the Museo del Territorio in Cormòns (GO) and at the Meizlik Palace in Aquileia (UD). Appointment on Saturday 17 October 2020 at 10.30 am and 4 pm for the double presentation.
Protagonists are the best ranked photos in the URBAN Photo Awards, contaminated by some of the main collective photographic projects created in 2020 by the Exhibit Around platform, involving hundreds of authors from all over the world:

• Sulle tracce dello Stato Patriarcale di Aquileia, created with the patronage of the Municipalities of Aquileia and Cormòns, which sees Dr. Angela Borzacconi, director of the National Archaeological Museum of Cividale, as scientific consultant.
• Generations, a project focused on the elderly that combines photography and poetry, created in collaboration with the AsSostegno association and the ITIS of Trieste.
• Staying Home Together, created together with the American photomagazine F-Stop and focused on the shared global experience of the lockdown due to Covid-19. Each project exhibited also consists of a collective photographic volume.

Exhibits

Sala Veruda will host the collective of over 150 photos Chromantic, a tribute to Alex Webb that focuses on the artistic use of color. 169 authors from five continents are involved for a full-bodied project, unique of its kind, which also includes a prestigious photographic volume in which the art critic Sandro Parmiggiani has collaborated, who will speak at the presentation of the project on Friday 23 October at 7 pm in the Sala Xenia. Special guest: Czech photographer Miloš Nejezchleb.

The Civic Museum of Oriental Art will host the exhibition This is not Korea. Images of the two Koreas. Photos by Alain Schroeder, conceived and created by the Civic Museums of History and Art of the Municipality of Trieste, under the direction of Laura Carlini Fanfogna, director of the Museums and Libraries Service, curated by Michela Messina, curator of the Civic Museum of Oriental Art and Claudia Colecchia, head of the Photo Library and Library of the Civic Museums of History and Art. Woodcuts by Katsushika Hokusai and historical photographic evidence kept by the Photo Library dialogue with the contemporary photos taken in Korea by the Belgian Alain Schroeder. The presentation of the exhibition is scheduled for Sunday 25 October at 11.30 am, in the presence of Councilor Giorgio Rossi, at the Auditorium of the Revoltella Museum.

This year as well, the collaboration between URBAN Photo Awards and the Museums and Libraries Service of the Municipality of Trieste will give life to a prestigious prize-exhibition at the “Sartorio” Museum. Four finalist projects by Julia Runge, Chiara Panariti & Gianfranco Ferraro, Romain Thiery and Antonio Tartaglia will be exhibited. The photos on display were selected by Laura Carlini Fanfogna, director of the Civic Museums of the Municipality of Trieste and by Claudia Colecchia, head of the Photo Library and Library of the Civic Museums of the Municipality of Trieste. The curator of the museum, Lorenza Resciniti, collaborated on the set-up. Presentation and award ceremony on Friday 23 October 2020 at 4 pm at the Sartorio Civic Museum.

The Women Street Photographers exhibition arrives in Italy for the first time, a project born from the very successful Instagram profile created by the New York photographer Gulnara Samoilova. A traveling collective of street photographers, which has already visited New York, Washington, Brussels, New Delhi and Sofia. The exhibition will be hosted by the Accademia Scaglia and will be presented by Ximena Echague and Enrico Scaglia on Friday 23 October at 6 pm in Sala Xenia.

Sala Xenia, the main venue of the festival, will host four exhibitions: the collective of the winners of URBAN 2020 Photo Awards, the photographic project Trieste, passato, presente e futuro, Lorenzo Zoppolato‘s Cronache immaginarie di un domatore di cavalli and Carlo Barberio‘s Thank God for my life.

Finally, there is a special collective exhibition at the Trieste Railway Station, thanks to the partnership with Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato).

Contest, portfolio review and award ceremonies

The program on Saturday 24 October at the Auditorium of the Revoltella Museum will culminate with the URBAN 2020 Award Ceremony. At 5 pm will be awarded and presented Journey to the Lowlands by Valeria Sacchetti, the winning project of the URBAN Book Award, selected by the English street photographer Nick Turpin among over 160 competing projects. The URBAN medal table will follow and, at 19 o’clock, jury president Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb will be in streaming from New York to announce the Winner Overall.

This year, the traditional portfolio readings will be held online thanks to the partnership with Italy Photo Award.

Talks and presentations

Several talks and presentations are scheduled at Sala Xenia during the central weekend.

On Friday 23 October, at 6.30 pm, Francesco Cito, a legend of Italian photography, will receive the TPD Lifetime Achievement Award and will talk with the festival’s art director Angelo Cucchetto.

On Saturday 24 October, at 10 am, the presentation of the photographic volumes Cities 7 and Urbanscape will be held by Angelo Cucchetto, creator of ISP – Italian Street Photography, with Graziano Perotti, photoeditor, Vanni Pandolfi and Sonia Pampuri.

On Saturday 24 October, at 11 am, two great Italian authors, Francesco Faraci and Lorenzo Zoppolato, will hold the meeting “The Periphery of Photography”.

On Saturday 24 October, at 3 pm, street photographer Nick Turpin will present the recently reborn international collective iN-PUBLiC. Polish street photographer Ania Klosek will present the collective Burn my Eye on Sunday 25 October, at 3.30 pm.

The award ceremony and presentation of the book Trieste, passato, presente e futuro will be held on Sunday 25 October at 10 am. A new collective tribute to our hometown. A collection of photos and portfolios / projects focused on the changing Trieste: a city of art and sea, rich in history, culture and food and wine excellence, leading to the East and the heart of Central Europe.

On Sunday 25 October, at 4 pm, meeting with Miloš Nejezchleb, member of the URBAN 2020 jury and special guest of the Chromantic project, who will present his surreal and artistic vision of photography.

Trieste Photo Fringe 2020

To crown the main calendar, the Trieste Photo Fringe exhibitions, the “widespread festival” of Trieste Photo Days which takes place in a selected circuit of clubs in the city center and includes collective and personal exhibitions of authors from all over the world. This year the Fringe circuit has 20 exhibition venues for over 500 photos on display.