Women Power. The eye on women. Women Power on display

DWhere are women?
We asked ourselves by observing the evolutions of the legendary Magnum agency, temple of photojournalism, incubator of languages ​​and monumental archive that houses our visual memory, On the occasion of the next exhibition Women Powerwhich tells the path of women through images that offer a powerful cross -section of the complexity of the female condition.

Magnum Photos, an agency of real men

The agency Magnum, consisting of “real men”, war and street photographers, eyes on the changing world, was born in 1947 when the legendary photographer Robert Capa wants to share, confront and create something unique. Call the friends and colleagues with whom he experienced the experience and feeling of the Bellica tragedy, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David “Chim” Seymour, to which are added the spouses Vandivert and Maria Eisner to found a new cooperative independent of masters and leaders, the Magnum. Strengthened by an Orthodox ethics, the agency immediately wants to merge artistic research with the documentation of the facts of the world. Winning and profitable combination that still preserves today, so much so that it has survived the disappearance of the other agencies.

Yeah, but women? They struggle to enter: in the 1950s the pioneers Eve Arnold and Inge Morath arrive, to which others are gradually added, distilled with the dropper in the following decades. Today there are 14, men 81. Gender equality is far away. The photograph on the field underwent the stigma of an undoubted machismo throughout the last century. Finish to when it was produced by the newspapers, it was difficult to entrust a photographer the task of going to war or inside a prison. The world was and is a dangerous place and women, you know, are more vulnerable.

Music has changed

But the music has changed: today the authors are fierce, capable, very strong and are opening the way to the others. The narrative relies on different languages, artistic research, insights, investigation. In these new territories it is the voice of women who resonate strong, capable of sensitive and original narratives. The Women Power.

The photographers

Newsha tavakolian Tehran, Iran, 1981 The photographer gives voice to Iranian women through a series of portraits to highlight the cultural restrictions imposed on the singers in Iran. «For me the voice of a woman represents a power that, if you silence, unbalances society and makes everything deformed. I let the Iranian singers perform through my camera while the world has never heard them ». The Listen project focuses on singers who cannot perform alone or produce their CDs due to the Islamic standards in force by the 1979 Revolution. “I have made images that ideally could be on the cover of one of their CDs, a dream for each of them because the CD cases will remain empty for now. This is my interpretation of the society in which I live and I have experience. ” Newsha Tavakolian soon began to photograph by often dedicating herself to the condition of women in places of criticality, always relying on a language between reality and imagination.

Beeke DepoorterCourtrai, Belgium, 1986 “Photography guides me in paths that can amaze me”. And the amazement arises from the relationships he establishes with the subjects of his works. Since 2011, the year of Arab spring, Depoorter travels to Egypt by creating portraits of families in their homes. He asked for hospitality, sharing and observing the life of what would become the protagonists of AS It May Be. In 2017 she returned to Egypt bringing with her the first print of her book and invited the subjects of the images to write directly on the printed photographs. This gave life to comments, visions, contrasting emotions in a moment of difficult transition of the country and of great vulnerability of the lives of individuals. The small booklet included in the volume collects the handwritten notes in Arabic together with an English translation, thus allowing everyone to understand their meaning.

Olivia ArthurLondon, the United Kingdom, 1980 the image on the right is taken from work the children of Europe, a tribute to the project of the great photographer David Seymour who in Europe, after the Second World War, made Children of Europe. Olivia Arthur with her camera investigates the immigrant communities: “I have created this work to portray children who arrive in the United Kingdom both as economic migrants from Europe and as refugees from all over the world. Some have been granted refugee status, others are still waiting for an answer. In different families, in London and Glasgow, I have seen people fight in difficult life conditions, but also people who have tightened strong relationships with Great Britain and with the British families who have helped them. How much has Europe progressed in terms of integration and reduction of barriers from the end of the Second World War? And how strong is the regression potential that now seems to be looming? ». It is 2017 and the questions that the author arises belong to the debate on Brexit which will bring the United Kingdom outside the European Union. Olivia Arthur studied mathematics at the University of Oxford and photojournalism at London College of Printing. Photographer since 2003. A series of works on women and cultural gaps began immediately. His first book, Jeddah Diary (2012), follows the life of young women in Saudi Arabia. The second book, Stranger (2015), is a trip to Dubai seen with the eyes of a survivor to a shipwreck. He has been in Magnum since 2013.

Myriam BoulosBeirut, Lebanon, 1992 “I don’t know how to deal with obsessions in another way except through photography”, declares this new interesting Lebanese artist. Photographing is his way of participating: for this reason in 2019 he told the protagonists of the revolution of his country. Subsequently, he documented the consequences of the devastating explosion at the port of Beirut. In 2020 he co-founded at Hayya, a feminist magazine, in Arabic and English, who publishes literary and visual content on the works, interests and struggles of women. He is currently carrying out the project Sexual Fantasiesies: a challenge to the conventional, colonial and patriarchal ways to represent women and their bodies through photography. The sexuality of women has been too often explored only through the male gaze.

Lúa RibeiraAs Pontes, Galicia, Spain 1986 connected to the subjects he chooses, immersed in the world he wants to investigate, aware of the inequalities and contradictions of this world, Ribeira addresses difficult issues: the homeless, mental disability, migration. Yet the photography that returns is poetic and hypnotic, metaphorical and allusive. An artist who loves portrait and shocks the documentary tradition, while keeping its style. «I am interested in the nuns, thieves and gardens. The decomposition body, witchcraft, receptions in the hotel and the doors of the sky. Ghosts, funeral impresaries and gravity ». Here is the disorienting energy of this author who in 2023 published her first monograph, entitled Subida to the sky and containing five series made between 2016 and 2020.

Alessandra SanguinettiNew York, 1968 Guille and Belinda are cousins, live in the province of Buenos Aires. They are respectively 9 and 10 years old when they meet the photographer who, fascinated by their relationship and the enchantment of childhood, will follow them for 5 years. «I was working on a project entitled On The Sixth Day, on the relationship between animals and human beings on a farm in Buenos Aires. The girls were often nearby as I photographed hens and pigs and usually asked them to get away from the frame. Then I realized that they too were a story to tell and so we united our lives ». The adventures of Guille and Belinda and the enigmatic meaning of their dreams is the magnificent title of this series that had a following …

The exhibition Women Power

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