Cortona On The Move 2022

Curatorial Statement
curated by Paolo Woods

What happens when we turn a camera on somebody? Is photography a weapon or a spotlight? Who is entitled to shoot what? Is consent necessary? Are we still photographing windows or are we just lost in a giant hall of mirrors, endlessly looking at ourselves? Issues that are at the core of the medium, that have been debated for decades, have recently resurfaced with a new vigor, propelled by the identity warfare that has engulfed us. The reckoning our world is going through on race, gender and class is upending unwritten rules and writing new ones.

At this crucial moment, when photography is more relevant than ever and has become a universal language––produced, shared and consumed in a ravenous manner––Cortona On The Move comes to reflect on authorship, point of view and legitimacy, on how subject and object intersect, collide and finally coexist.

“Me, Myself and Eye” is the theme of the festival for this 2022 edition, where photography will engage in soul searching, never escaping controversy but always verging towards the poetic. Like daring astronauts, we will explore the medium’s outer limits and, like meticulous archaeologists, we will unearth its buried stories.