The presented work represents a past memory in which each of us can recognize ourselves, and like an autobiographical event of pain, it can become a refuge to experience a more peaceful childhood.
This is how Denis Curti, Artistic Director of Casa Tre Oci, describes it, having chosen an intimate and emotional work by photographer Moira Ricci (1977).
“I chose this black and white shot by Moira Ricci, a work very close to my heart. It’s a photograph I love very much, the first one I purchased for my small collection. I see myself more as a curator than a collector, and I bought this image because it evokes a feeling that deeply moved me.
Moira Ricci is the girl dressed in black seen on the right side of the image, looking down at the two girls at the summer camp. You can recognize her by the classic uniform, the hat, and the typical teacher, who has her hands on their shoulders. One of the two girls is Moira Ricci’s mother.
With a simple digital manipulation, the artist inserts herself into the photograph, doing so because she feels the absence of her mother, who passed away suddenly.”
In 2004, Moira Ricci suddenly lost her mother, and from that moment on, she couldn’t stop looking through her photo albums. Family memories that didn’t belong to the artist herself, since she wasn’t born yet at the time, but which allowed her to discover, time after time, another piece of the woman’s life.
So Moira Ricci, revisiting her family albums and the photographs contained within, felt this nostalgia and expressed a desire to get closer, to really enter the heart of those moments.
“I kept looking at her photos; I just wanted to be there with her. I inserted myself as precisely as possible to make my dream believable that I could still be by her side, make up for the lost time, and protect her,” explains the artist.
In fact, Moira inserted herself into the photographs trying to blend in as much as possible through clothing and poses. Yet, she remains a disquieting presence—a ghost from the future trying to communicate through the intense gaze always directed toward her mother.
“I tried to create a dialogue, a sort of temporal collision between present and past in which my memory of that particular moment did not exist. This work, composed of many images, takes its title from the birth and death dates of my mother: 20.12.53–10.08.04. It is a piece from 2004, an attempt by the artist to reconstruct a kind of family chronicle, to return to the origins and to bridge the distance.
I chose this work because it feels very current and relevant to the times we are living through.”
Biografia
DENIS CURTI | Director of the monthly magazine Il Fotografo and Artistic Director of the Casa dei Tre Oci in Venice, as well as Artistic Director of the Capri Photography Festival. Founder of the postgraduate Master’s program in photography in collaboration with NABA and Fondazione Forma. Consultant to the Fondazione di Venezia for the management of photographic heritage. Founder of PICC (Photography Italian Culture Capital) and of Still (photography showroom and gallery). Curator of exhibitions and photographic showcases, author of books, and photography critic for newspapers and magazines. He was also the director for several years of Agenzia Contrasto, which published in Italy the works of photographers from the renowned Magnum agency.