Days of Italian Photography kick off

TIRANA, Apr. 14 – “I don’t pretend, or expect to change the world with photography. But I still believe that bad photographs make the world a little darker,” says Ferdinando Scianna, a famous Italian photographer who opened the Italian Days of Photography in Tirana.
The initiative by the Italian Institute of Culture in Tirana offers a series of meetings with famous Italian photographers, and presents their work through documentaries and debates. Despite the strong bond between the two countries in the field of photography – especially thanks to the figure of Pietro Marubi, considered the father of Albanian photography – in recent years initiatives dedicated to Italian contemporary photography have been sporadic.
The new project is aimed at promoting photography and its most famous representatives. Scianna opened the event on Thursday, April 17 recalling his special bond with Albania. The photographer was one of the first tourists to visit the country, and is author of a 1984 photo-report on Albania, available on the website of Magnum Agency.
The event opened with the screening of an Italian documentary, followed by a brief presentation of the artist by Professor Albes Fusha.
Ferdinando Scianna was born in Bagheria (Palermo) on July 4, 1943. His career has been greatly influenced by his relationship with his home, Sicily, and his friendship with Leonardo Sciascia. The great Sicilian writer, after visiting Scianna’s first exhibition in Bagheria in 1963, was inspired to write his “Feste religiose in Sicilia.” In the article, Sciascia gives the most effective definition of Scianna’s work: “his photography is a quick and swift organization of reality, a catalyst of objective reality in photographic reality – almost everything his lens puts in focus adapts, in a moment of instant magnetism, to Scianna’s feelings, will, and ultimately his style.” Scianna’s career continued in Milan, where the photographer in 1967 partnered with L’Europeo, first as a photographer, then as a journalist. Sent as a correspondent to Paris, he met Henri Cartier- Bresson, who introduced him to the prestigious Magnum Agency. Scianna also wrote for Le Monde Diplomatique and La Quinzaine Litt곡ire. He entered the world of fashion in the late 1980s, established himself as one of the most requested photographers. He always kept alive his interest in religious themes (Pilgrimage to Lourdes, 1995), literature (Jorge Luis Borges photographed by Ferdinando Scianna, 1999) and Sicily. With Giuseppe Tornatore, he published in 2009, for the film Baaria, the photo-book Baaria Bagheria.