2021 edition

We Are Humans
july 15th / october 3rd 2021

Director Antonio Carloni
Artistic Director Arianna Rinaldo

Curatorial Statement

Without a doubt, 2020 was one of the most complex and uncertain years in the recent history of the contemporary world. It still is. Doubts about the future, personal and global, economic, political, social and sanitary, are still deeply rooted in the minds of all of us. They are real.

As a container and producer of stories that narrate our world, Cortona On The Move strongly believes in the importance of documenting what is happening in an attempt to understand it better, but also not to forget. From this belief, in the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 Visual Project: A Time of Distance was born; a permanent archive, but still in progress, on the pandemic linked to the new coronavirus.

Right now we are all still trying to make sense of the new normal, our changed lives, uncertain expectations about the future. Surely this global, almost universal experience also has a very intimate and personal side. Each of us, in recent months, has had the opportunity to reflect on their existence: we were forced to stop, slow down our activities, focusing on some simpler and more essential aspects of life.

The family, relationships, friendships have become the nerve center, even if at a distance, of our daily lockdown. Contact, affections, encounters have turned into a virtual experience, but often more profound. We re-evaluated some behaviors, rediscovered distant friendships, paid attention to small gestures and simple words. Suddenly, on the phone we no longer asked “Where are you? the usual standard greeting of our mobile calls, but “How are you?”. And it wasn’t just so to speak.

The human being, alone, but in planetary company, has returned to center stage. This global crisis therefore becomes an opportunity to rethink and restructure a social and economic system that has forced and accustomed us to never stop, to compulsively want more and more.

It becomes necessary, almost vital, to reestablish contact with ourselves, as human beings, in the fragility and strength of every day, in the intimate sociality of the closest relationships, in the innate necessity to be together, in the inexplicable need to connect one to the other, and in the inextricable desire for emotions and values that unite us.

For Cortona On The Move 2021, we want to tell stories that reconnect with ourselves, with the human essence of our being. Stories in which the human being is the protagonist, in his/her everyday life, with his/her emotions and values, idiosyncrasies, genius, defects. Almost a tribute to our existence, with sweetness and sincerity.
Who knows, even with a touch of atavistic nostalgia. An inner look towards a world that was or will be. Without forgetting that our actions, however unique, are part of a great global network, a game of cause and effect, a set of inevitable connections. For better or for worse.

We are humans.

Curated by Arianna Rinaldo

Exhibitions:

New Visions:

Catherine Panebianco with the project “No Memory is Ever Alone” and Federico Estol with “Shine Heroes” are the two artists who will be presented with individual exhibitions in Cortona at Cortona On The Move 2021.
Alexey Pavlov with “Time to be Together” and Cristiano Volk with “Laissez-faire” will see their works published on the LensCulture website in the course of 2021.

Together with them, the works of the other six finalists – Gabriele Cecconi, Ingmar Björn Nolting, Giles Price, Max Sturgeon, Nicolò Panzeri & Mattia Micheli, Rubén Salgado Escudero – will be screened during the opening days of Cortona On The Move 2021.

Happiness ONTHEMOVE:

Among 293 participants in the Happiness ONTHEMOVE Award, organised in collaboration with Cortona Wine Consortium, the jury selected Italian photographer Elisabetta Zavoli as the winner with her project “And in Darkness You Find Colors”.

Portfolio reviews:

Manila Camarini – Picture Editor, D La Repubblica, DLUI
Andrea Comollo – ‎Head Of Communication, ‎WeWorld Onlus
Lucy Conticello – Director of Photography, M Magazine, Le Monde
Renata Ferri – Photo Editor IO donna
Gabrielle Fonseca Johnson – Senior Editor, Special Projects and Wider Image, Reuters
Orsoloya Groenewold – Photo Editor, Stern
Sara Guerrini – Parallelozero, Yourpictureditor
Beppe La Rosa – Digital Content Editor, Medici Senza Frontiere
Lars Lindemann – Director of Photography and Deputy Visual Director, GEO and PM
Emanuela Mirabelli – Photo Editor Marie Claire
Maysa Moroni – Photo Editor Internazionale
Andrei Polikanov – Visual Director, Takie Dela
Paola Romano – Perimetro

Summer school:

In collaboration with Canon Academy, the Summer School offers the opportunity to attend auteur lectures, with 2 dedicated workshop.

Documentary Photography and the Right Distance with Jérôme Sessini
Capturing mood and tone with Evgenia Arbugaeva