F50 Exhibition: LONELINESS – dialogues with places/non-places

The members of f50 are delighted to announce our first group exhibition as part of the Milan Photofestival 2022. The show is curated by Matteo Pacini and hosted by Paula Nora Seegy at Artespressione gallery.

Participating in this show are Mahesh Balasubramanian (India), Matteo Ceschi (Italy), Steve Coleman (UK), Keith Goldstein (USA) and John Meehan (UK).

From the official press release for the exhibition (written by Matteo Pacini)…

“In the current complex historical moment, pandemic and post-pandemic scenarios have expanded the spectrum of what the French philosopher and anthropologist Marc Augé defines as ‘non-places’, i.e. impersonal spaces with less and less identity in which people circulate as anonymous entities intersecting without entering into a relationship. Interactions are driven by a frenetic desire to consume, accelerate and concentrate daily activities.

This condition, typical of places such as shopping centres, highways, stations and airports, pushes users to feel at ease thanks to the standardization of spaces. The similarity makes them feel familiar all over the world wherein the common experience of users creates an illusion that social differences are flattened. Advancing globalization risks dragging more and more shared spaces of our cities into these dynamics, whereby common spaces lose their identity becoming ‘non-places’. This trend reflects more a mass inner condition than the unexpected consequence of a short-sighted commercial or urban strategy.

In the ‘non-places’ we are at the same time participants and strangers, strangers in a no man’s land, a land that in any case feels inexplicably ours. The reference to Marc Augé is evident in the choice of the title ‘Loneliness’, solitudes, and in the willingness of the members of the collective f/50 The International Photography Collective (www.f50collective.com) to explore the concept of ‘non-belonging’ in photographic research aimed at physically recording the ‘personal-impersonal’ dichotomy through a series of interpretations of reality in different parts of the world.”

The exhibition will be open from 16 to 30 September 2022, from Tuesday to Saturday from 12.00 to 19.00. For visits by appointment call 3299648086 or email artespressione@gmail.com.