Beautiful Country

Statement by Renata Ferri

To look again at what surrounds us. To recognize the marks of time, to discover nuances — even the most imperceptible ones, those that slip past reality, yet that photography knows how to capture and entrust to memory. To observe is an act that defines us; in it are reflected our history, our knowledge and our feelings, emotions and memories. In every act of seeing, fragments of autobiography pour forth.

In this image-saturated age, Beautiful Country invites us to observe more carefully, to become more aware of the world around us and its fragile balance to which we are inextricably connected. It is from these thoughts that the architecture of the new edition of the Cortona International Photography Festival takes shape — dedicated to telling the story of Italy over recent decades, an incomplete atlas, since observation is by its very nature endless. A journey of journeys, where photographs become waypoints in an exploration — at times spontaneous, at times meticulous — of the visual and cultural identity of the country.

Italian and international photographers engage in a dual vision that blends the spirit of the Grand Tour with the depth of contemporary documentary inquiry. More than thirty exhibitions, cross-generational dialogues, and a major group show explore Italy in all its complexity — where wonder and disenchantment inevitably intertwine.

And so, this Country that we love and wish to protect once again entrusts photography with the poetic mission of charting space — at times nurturing the sense of wonder that comes with discovery, at times inventing other worlds to spark imagination and reflection.

Within the festival, Peninsula comes to life — a commissioned project bringing together ten artists of a generation that, grateful for the lessons of the masters behind the mythical Viaggio in Italia of 1984, is eager to engage with the defined and liminal territories of the contemporary landscape.

With Beautiful Country, the Cortona International Photography Festival offers a collective experience for sharing stories, images and thoughts, but also a further opportunity to investigate photography’s current capacity to record and render both reality and representation, through languages that continue to invite us on the adventure of looking.