Fabiola Cedillo, Ligia Poplawska And Samuel Fordham Will Exhibit At Phmuseum Days 2021

The photographers' respective works will become part of the festival official program and be exhibited individually in Bologna on 23-26 September, 2021. Discover their work and read the judges' motivations.

The photographers' respective works will become part of the festival official program and be exhibited individually in Bologna on 23-26 September, 2021. Discover their work and read the judges' motivations.

Among more than 700 applications showing an impressive range of talent, approaches and ideas, the PHmuseum Days 2021 Open Call's jury selected three works to exhibit at the festival. The eventual prize recipients are Human by Fabiola Cedillo - on the human being's need for reproduction, naturally and through technology - Fading Senses by Ligia Poplawska - on the implications of the loss of ecosystems on our mental and emotional health - and C-R92/BY by Samuel Fordham - on thousands of British families forcibly separated by the Home Office.

Judge Laura El-Tantawy explains why the panel selected Ligia Popławska’s Fading Senses: "Ligia's work - she says - explores the emotional and mental implications on individuals from the growing disparity with their natural habitat. Drawing on her own experience of temporarily losing one of her senses, she takes us on an intimate and compassionate journey through deserted landscapes and abandoned interiors. Popławska provides an original observation of the relationship between people and their natural habitat. Her photographs of people and landscapes are punctuated with a lingering tension — a sense of suspension and serene stillness. She photographs with a deliberate aesthetic that is blunt, uncompromising and doesn’t try to hide behind anything. The photographs are meditative and consistent, gesturing something is about to happen or has just happened, leaving the viewer wondering, dreaming, fearing — altogether making this work both tempting and appealing to engage with time and time again."

PHmuseum's Curator Rocco Venezia says instead on the work of Samuel Fordham C-R92/BY: "Samuel's project is a meditation on long-distance emotional relationships which are held up thanks to technology and how severe migratory policy from certain countries affect them. He combines photographs, documents and testimonies from others, which are intertwined with his own story. Starting from his experience that examined his wife facing deportation from Uk, Fordham wishes to give voice to the suffering of families who find themselves in such circumstances amplified by the rise of extreme nationalisms in the era of Brexit. Furthermore, this project generates a deeper reflection on a world where more and more our presence is given by two-dimensional images shared on screens while new forms of relationships are introduced, mostly characterised by physical absence."

This is instead judge Lua Ribeira motivations for the selection of Human by Fabiola Cedillo: "Fabiola's project - she explains - explores the current natural and technological methods in place for human reproduction. By combining images that address those experiences both from the machinery involved and the people participating in the process - the work makes us question with a political and sometimes philosophical intention the needs, consequences, origins and potential implications of Assisted Human Reproduction Techniques."

The 15 works for the projections' night and the up-to-40 images for the collective installations will be announced in the coming weeks at phmuseum.com/d21, together with the festival full program and much exciting news. Thank you again for following this journey since its beginning, we hope to see you at the festival in Bologna, Italy on 23-26 September!