Photolux Festival

From family portraits that give back an image of the society in which they were taken, to the romantic stories that have characterized every era – sometimes revealing its contradictions as well -, love has accompanied photography in its rapid and tumultuous development. And while photography changed, our way of telling and experiencing Love has also changed: in fact, visual language has increasingly become one of the ways in which we communicate and establish relationships with others and with ourselves. In everyday life, photography teaches us to love ourselves, to lose ourselves and to forget ourselves; in a nutshell, it guides us in expressing our feelings without expecting to define them or label them.

The selection of authors in the 2022 edition of Photolux Festival presents the multiplicity of possible approaches – some new and contemporary, others more classic and traditional – to the theme of love, which translate into unique and different stories and encounters, where we all can find a little bit of ourselves.
With the exhibition proposal of “You can call it Love” we thought of photography no longer as a mirror or as a window – citing Szarkowski’s historical distinction -, but as an x-ray machine, capable of seeing through us and giving voice to some sensations, desires, emotions that we don’t even know we have.

Not only photography at Photolux Festival : Paolo Crepet, Paolo Sottocorona and Lorella Zanardo also arrive in Lucca . The international biennial of photography, scheduled from 21 May to 12 June, offers, as always, a broad collateral and transversal programming. In fact, many talks dedicated to the world of photography with industry experts and just as many appointments that will be able to tell, through words and music, the boundless world of love.

It begins on Saturday (May 28), at 7 pm, with the presentation of the Volto Manifesto by Lorella Zanardo and Cesare Cantù. The meeting, with free admission, will be held in the auditorium of the Agorà Civic Library and will talk about the new important project by Zanardo, activist and writer, and Cantù, to tell the transformations of the human face in the digital age. Love, then, for oneself or for the image that is returned to the outside? Love for perfection or for differences? Love, again, for the real or for the imagined?

Then, on Saturday 4 June, at 6 pm, with Paolo Sottocorona . The Italian meteorologist, the famous face of La7, will tell about love from his personal and very particular point of view in the meeting entitled Time to love, love to time . Also in this case the event is free to enter and will be held at 6 pm in the San Micheletto Auditorium.

Space also for music with a journey dedicated to passion in all its forms, led by Daniele Sabatini’s violins and Simone Rugani’s piano.Organized in collaboration with Lucca Classica Music Festival and the Boccherini conservatory, the concert will present a selection of pieces deeply linked to love: from the fraternal love of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, to the lost love of Mozart; from the impossible loves of Brahms to the maternal affection of Antonín Dvořák; and again the idealized love of Niccolò Castiglioni and finally the romantic one of Henryk Wieniawski. All enriched by the projection of Pino Ninfa’s shots: a tried and tested and very suggestive formula, that of combining music and photography. The concert will be held on Sunday 5 June, at 9 pm, in the Suffragio church.

Photolux programming continues, then, with Lessons of dreams , the preview presentation of the new book by Paolo Crepet. The psychiatrist, who has always been a point of reference for everything related to love and relationships, will talk about dreams and passions, from all points of view. The appointment is on Saturday 11 June, at 9 pm, in the church of San Francesco.