On the presentation of the photographic project Suspended – Italy through the lens of Jacopo Di Cera and Massimo Vitali, curated by Serena Tabacchi at MIA Photo Fair (Milan, 20 – 23 March 2025), we entered into conversation with the photographer Jacopo di Cera, who introduces us the project, reflecting on his artistic photographic and video-art research between previous and future contributions.
Jacopo di Cera, “Warm up”, Marcialonga, Val di Fassa, courtesy the artist
Sara Buoso: Would you like to tell us about the title chosen for the photographic project Suspended, for MIA Photo Fair, 2025? This word seems to suggest purely photographic reflections and others of a metaphorical nature in a broader sense.
Jacopo di Cera: Suspended was conceived ten years ago with the desire to narrate an Italian scenario along with considerations on the different aspects that characterized the human conditions of Italian citizens through different photographic points of view. The title Suspended reflects in fact, two connotations: firstly, it reflects a particular point of view which distinguishes my approach to photography; secondly, from a purely conceptual point of view, the title intends to encapsulate a timeless moment, an idea of life as a becoming. Through my photographic story I do not intend to represent a fixed and permanent image of Italy, but to analyze scenarios subject to an evolutionary path, in movement, scenarios that change or paradoxically not, highlighting the contrast. For example, for theFake Heaven project, photographs taken in Rosignano, Versilia, I highlight the paradox between seaside pollution and interest, social flattening, describing a place as problematic as it is fascinating.
Would you like to tell us about the intellectual dialogue established with Massimo Vitali and how the project fits into the context of MIA Photo Fair?
Milan is my hometown and MIA Photo Fair is the heart of photography. I have been a photographer for twenty-five years now and have been participating here since 2016. In this sense, it is important to be present at MIA Photo Photo Fair in what is the eco-system of contemporary photography in Italy. Photographically speaking, it is important to share stories and compare them, and myself. I look forward to be present with Suspended, in collaboration with Massimo Vitali, following the presentation of the project at Maison Bosi gallery in Rome, in 2024. Massimo Vitali celebrated his thirty years from his first photographic image of the Italian summer in August 2024, and in conjunction, we aim parallel yet distinct points of view.
Jacopo di Cera, “Pass me the Parmigiana”, courtesy the artist
Your stylistic signature is characterized by a point of view from above, an aerial and zenithal viewpoint. This is accompanied by an interest in collective places, bordering on research into the ritual value inherent in social relations and in relation to places.
Every artist faces his/her epiphanic moment and for me, it was magic. I am particularly referring to the photographic series Pass me the Parmigiana! when from above, I captured the images of a convivial and collective moment, taken in Procida, a typical tradition of Southern Italian culture: in this community, at lunchtime, you can witness the alignment of the boats arriving at the port and being positioned there, after a day of adventure in the sea, and exchanging food from boat to boat, according to an implicit and ancestral collective ritual. Perceiving this event from above, allowed me to reflect on the duration of such a ritual and I felt the need to tell this phenomenon in order to promote its community value. Other visions tend to flatten the community, but on the contrary, my photographic view from above aims to illuminate such a perspective, eliminating any visual hierarchy. In my view, this speaks of what it means to Italian by transcending any social macro-categorization in order to tell specific stories emerging from specific contexts, stories that can be perceived in terms of contradiction, love or balance.
Do you think that photography is narration?
Narration is fundamental in my photographic research, but it is not necessarily associated with figuration. In photographic series Fino alla Fine del Mare, 2016, for example, I present a series of abstract images, taken from close-ups and shots of boats pictured in Lampedusa, Sicily, and transcending reality in order to suggest evocative narratives and scenarios. In this project in particular, I wanted to talk about the figure of the migrant and wandering man, a contemporary Ulysses, and after talking with the curator of the project, Massimo Ciampa, we discussed a series of key words suggesting such a narration: struggle, salvation, bond, encoding, they all turned out to be the most suitable words to photographically tell such stories through the photographic image. After all, we must agree, since prehistoric times, men have always felt the need to tell stories through pictograms and images.
Jacopo di Cera, “Torchlight 3”, San Cassiano, courtesy the artist
Going back to previous photographic projects such as Italian Summer, 2020, your research seems to pursue the method of mapping, a cartographic vision of Italian places and society. Is this really the case?
Mapping was initially an intent, a fascination, a desire. But I later abandoned my interest in this purely scientific method to favor stories and narrativity. For example, again for the project Ssuspended, 2024-25 I present images taken from the Gulf of Augusta where, from a photographic shot from above, I highlight the contrast that exists between the landscape – an important refinery is located near the seaside areas – and the bathers who occupy the surrounding areas in the summer. Perceiving this discomfort is important for my research before any visualization, translating it later into a photographic shot.
By virtue of these projects, how would you then define the traits of contemporary Italianness?
Mine are individual stories. They are attitudes translated into a series of very different images. For example, the landscape of Rome with its chaos is very different from the maniacal geometry of Versilia. But what interests me perhaps is the persistence of rites and traditions that distinguish the Italian cultural identity. For example, in the photographic project conceived for the Palio Marinaro dell’Argentario, it is very clear how the ceremony of the escape of the boats at night towards the sea, more broadly narrates and evokes – despite its courageously undertaken risks – a consolidated cultural imagery that draws reference from the mythological figure of Charon, ferryman of Hades. In this sense, my images are an anachronistic narration between myth, ritual, and photography.
Jacopo di Cera, “Snow Shadow”, Dolomiti, courtesy the artist
In addition to the theme of sustainability that returns as a constant in your projects, how do you perceive the relational, collective, community aspect that seems to distinguish your images?
I would suggest two answers, both in relation to specific contexts. In my physical work – the image, the photograph – the community expresses itself towards the territory and the context, often expressing a sharp contrast. As for digital works – the video, the loop – my exercise consists in giving the image an element, a spatial prison, eliminating time, where there is no beginning or end. Here, time lasts forever: my desire moves from the individual to the community, envisaging an eternal loop. It is said that emotion lasts as long as an action, but if the action is eternal, will the emotion also last forever?
You were talking about abstraction or, better, transcendence in your images. What do you mean?
Sometimes my images reach a certain level of abstraction like in Fino alla Fine del Mare. To be specific, it is not correct to talk about abstraction specifically, because some of my images are clearly figurative. Recently, for example, I took a night photo – a ski mountaineering race where each skier had a torch on their head and from above they created coloured spheres and geometric shapes reflected on the snow – and I asked the AI which painting it was associated with. The result was an association with the Constellations series, ca. 1930, by Vassily Kandinsky. The more the image flattens, the more the image takes us towards painting and the graphic line, in other words, transcending the three-dimensionality of space. The image has its own colors, its own composition, its own graphics. It reveals its intrinsic becoming in terms of beauty and contrast.
Jacopo di Cera, “Red Flag”, Rosignano, courtesy the artist
In your images you never lose sight of the luministic or graphic aspect. Opening up the discussion, given the fact we are living in a society of visual images, what fundamental role does photography still play at the present time?
In this regard, I still vividly remember the conversation I entailed with Oliviero Toscani, during an intense photography workshop. In particular, I remember him wanting us to analyze in class, a series of photographic images taken by a camera placed on the head of a donkey and shooted in an Italian square every three seconds: automatic images without too much thinking. This is to say that the shot is one thing – etymologically, the shot is the task of sprinters – while in photography, there is study, analysis, research and planning. This is the line I follow: to photograph means to study, to research and to think. Today, the diffusion of images starting from our I-Phone, is more and more diffused but it is not necessarily a negative thing. However, photography is something else: it is art and this is this eco-system that interests me.
In parallel to photography, you also work with moving images and video art. What is the difference between the two media?
Digital art allows me to explore the moving image: it allows me to communicate and analyze phenomena more widely. However, there is a specific distinction between photography and video images. This depends on the moment and the specific event/action. In the video I find a feeling, a greater emotionality than in the static image. The choice is different and depends on the strength and interest that I intend to address.
Jacopo di Cera, “Futur Torino”, Kappa Futur Festival, courtesy the artist
After MIA Photo Fair, what other projects do you have in the pipeline for 2025?
After Milan, I will be present at ArtDubai from April 15 o April 20, 2025, for the Art Dubai Digital session, where I will present the digital installation, Retreat which consists of an installation of forty monitors 100 % sustainable, fragmented between wall and floor, visualizing the melting of a glacier, in a constant loop in video images.
Info:
Suspended – Italy through the lens of Jacopo Di Cera and Massimo Vitali
MIA Photo Fair 2025, Superstudio MAXI, via Tortona 27, 20144, Milano
20-23/03/2025
www.jacopodicera.it
She is interested in the visual, verbal and textual aspects of the Modern Contemporary Arts. From historical-artistic studies at the Cà Foscari University, Venice, she has specialized in teaching and curatorial practice at the IED, Rome, and Christie’s London. The field of her research activity focuses on the theme of Light from the 1950s to current times, ontologically considering artistic, phenomenological and visual innovation aspects.
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