NAPOLI—ITALY: A CITY ON EDGE
An in depth exploration of one of the greatest cities in Italy: celebrate San Gennaro festival, Napoli's patron saint and discover the hidden places with guest photographers Professore Antonio Ruggieri and Antonio Bayano, both from Naples.
In Naples, the 19th of September is the Feast of San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples. This very special day for Neapolitans, celebrated since 1389, is an explosion of popular devotion to the city's saint and a fascinating synthesis of tradition and spirituality.
Gennaro was a bishop, who helped Christians escape from persecution during the reign of Emperor Diocletian. While visiting an imprisoned Christian, he was arrested by the Romans. According to legend, he survived being thrown into a fiery furnace and then a den of wild beasts who refused to eat him, still, he was eventually beheaded.
After his death, Gennaro's body was brought to Naples, along with a vial containing his blood. Housed in the Cathedral of San Gennaro, the congealed blood is said to miraculously turn back to liquid on the anniversary of his death on September 19 each year. If the blood was not to liquefy a catastrophe would befall the city of Naples.
In 2020 the blood of San Gennaro, failed to liquefy despite two rounds of praying by the faithful, which some see as an omen of bad things to come. That was the beginning of the Corona virus pandemic.
Description
Our Napoli workshop is a photographic exploration of the magical city built on the slopes of a range of hills bordering the Bay of Naples, an inlet of the Tyrrenian Sea. Naples is considered the Italian South. It is the capital of Naples province and the Campania region. The city is surrounded by three active volcanoes: Vesuvius, Ischia, and Campi Flegrei (Burning Fields).
The city is one of the most ancient cities of Europe with over 2000 year of history.
Naples exists in layers: there is the city above ground, and then there is Naples underground, a labyrinth of tunnels, Aqueducts, Bomb shelters, Catacombs, piazzas, and even houses built by the Greeks.
Originally dug by the Ancient Greeks for material to build Neapolis in the 4th century BC, these underground tunnels were later used by the Romans as aqueducts to supply water to the city. Expanded over two and a half millennia, this subterranean network stretches for 280 miles (450 kilometers) under modern Naples.
Then there is the Naples above ground with its distinct neighborhoods, innumerable churches, art, architecture, museums, and life at its most vibrant. Even without ever stepping inside a building, photographing the maze of markets, food, piazzas, traffic, and most famously the scalinatas, or simply stairways we would never tire. Each day in the early hours we will walk some of the scalinatas. They are an oasis away from traffic, children at play, laundry overhead. Other scalinatas offer vast vistas of the sea and the city. Don’t fear, we will always walk very slowly, which is what photographers do.
Then there is the beautiful bay of Naples, or the gardens, or the nearby Campi Flegrei, a large vulcanic caldera sitting on the west side of Naples.
Naples is complicated and unapologetic. You can’t always rely on public transportation and things run at their own pace. A pace that coincides with “I’ll do as I damn please.” Cars are old and dented, traffic signs are loosely interpreted. Naples is always alive.
Schedule
Each day we will set out in small groups to photograph the various neighborhoods and its landmarks. You will be given an itinerary for those who prefer to walk at their own pace or pursue a special interest. We will regroup for lunch and dinner.
Two days will be unique: The first day is when we visit a theater group that works with disadvantaged teenagers. The second day will be Thursday, the 19th, the day of the Feast of San Gennaro.
We will be joined by two outstanding photographers both native Neapolitans:
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Professor of photography at the Academy of Fine Arts of Sassari and Naples and the Italian Ministry of Public Education Ministry of Education AFAM MIUR.
Professor Ruggieri’s photographs have been widely exhibited in innumerable solo and group presentations. He has been published in over fifty books and publications. His photographic career spans over 40 years.
Antonio Ruggieri, born in 1962. He graduated in 1984 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples with an MFA in Painting and Summa Cum Laude.
In the 1980s he began his collaboration with the popular monthly magazine "Frigidaire" which would influence his research into the underground and its language. In 1992 he collaborated with the Grazia Neri photographic agency, producing projects published in major Italian and foreign magazines. In 1992 he won the Kodak European Award; the Young Italian Photography 1992 edition; Honorable Mention of Merit at the Yan Geoffroy award, awarded by the Grazia Neri agency for the black and white report on the Young Boxers of Miano (a suburb north of Naples ); selection Arles Fotografia. Since the 90’s he has collaborated with major national and foreign publishing groups. In 2007 he began his collaboration as a stage photographer for Rai. His activity alternates between photojournalism, fashion and stage photography, and teacher of photography. He currently holds the chair of Photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples.
From 1986 to the present, he has exhibited in private public galleries and museums in Italy and abroad, including the solo shows Diamond Dogs officina postindustriale, Galleria Comodo 64, Turin (2017) and Museo MADRE and Galleria Kromìa, Naples (2016) and the group shows 10 Photographer from Naples, Kultur Institut Köln D (2013), Witnesses and Visionaries, Museo della Permanente, Milan (1993), Collective exhibition, Ken Damy Museum, Brescia (1993). He publishes several volumes with his photographs including Diamond Dogs-officina postindustriale 1984-1987 (Rome 2016), Diamond Dogs thirty years later (Naples 2015) It will be a beautiful society (Bologna 2009) and The World Explained to Women (1998). The Tattoo - Stories about skin exhibition at the M9 Mestre Eventi museum in Venice (2019). Genoa Palermo Naples “The punk subculture in Italy of the 80s” 18 April - 8 June BACO About photographs - MINIMUM Via Giacalone 33-35, (Palermo 2019) Tattoo - Stories about the skin at the M9 museum in Mestre Events in Venice - A edited by Luca Beatrice, Alessandra Castellani –(2019Tattoo) – Art on the Skin- 9 November -2018 – 03- March- 2019 Museum of Oriental Art Turin- Edited by Luca Beatrice, Alessandra Castellani Italianism - Reggia di Portici in Naples 11-20 May 2018. Personal photographic exhibition at the Italian Institute of Culture Abroad, San Francisco California USA. Part of his archive is currently present in the collection of the museum of contemporary photography in Cinisello Balsamo (MI).
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Born in Naples (Italy) in 1962, I live in Turin, Italy since 1990. I began my photography activity in 1997 as a jazz photographer. At that time, I discovered my passion for reportage photography, which I see as a mean of exploration and knowledge of social themes and cultural diversities and identities. I began as a self-taught photographer, with time I shaped and improved my skills and view on reportage with David A. Harvey, Kent Kobersteen and Tomasz Tomaszewski who I consider my true “Maestro”.
I am mainly interested in developing stories and projects like Roots on Cuban Santeria, Denied Identity on the Turkey Kurds, “In the Mayas' Land” and the long-term story still ongoing from 2001 about the Cuban girl Yadira.