Not just a workshop but a Laboratory to try, prove, fail and try again; to step out of one’s comfort zone and set out in search of narrative through photography
Villa Cometti, 10 – 12 May 2019
They came from Rome, Turin, Milan, Vicenza and Padua. Each with their own experience and their seeing, with the camera at their side and not in front of their eyes.
With a great desire to get involved, experiment, to share. Between illustrated dice, narrated stories, life, and places to be told through photography.
In the splendid setting of Villa Cometti, an ancient 19th-century Venetian residence in Spinea (VE), the first Storytelling and Photography Workshop was held and curated by photoreporter Gabriele Orlini and of Barbara Silbe, head of EyesOpen! Magazine.
The Lab was aimed at creating and researching ideas for the narrative construction of a story from reality.
Together with a shooting session in Venice, the beautiful lagoon city just a few kilometres from Spinea, participants were involved in a course made up of practical exercises of storytelling in photography, preparatory shooting activities and a final discussion on the work carried out, in the Villa.
Three days of total immersion, full of experiences, in which everyone – including the teachers – brought home something new.
Stefano Valerio
I imagined Venice as a labyrinth, a fantastic labyrinth. And I walked along it in a slow lurch with the desire to get to its centre without worrying about its exit. A mysterious and magnificent wandering in the figures and spectres that fled and escaped in the Calle and alleys…
About the Laboratory…
It was an inspiring and enlightening weekend and one that, as usual, Gabriele, immense, led beyond expectations, due to the presence of Barbara Silbe to whom special thanks are due.
I firmly believe that Gabriele’s superpower is his strong empathy, capable of breaking through the shell of each person, of being able to bring out emotions and make them evolve until they become tangible through photographs, making such an intimate process, which is often reluctant to come out, very simple.
Alida Vanni
A tale of Venice from the narrow alleyways of Rialto, where commercial life begins at 7 a.m. dealing with everything involved in moving goods. An intense, dynamic, frenetic two-wheeler ride. Products are transferred from boats or warehouses at a controlled pace to end up on market stalls, restaurants, bars. Likewise, the collection of sorted waste proceeds with the utmost skill through the narrow streets of a lively Venice with a decidedly unique spirit.
About the Laboratory…
Gabriele is a drug… healthy, strong and of excellent quality.
Getting to know Barbara Silbe, listening to her, absorbing her charisma, passion and professionalism has been a strong charge for me and I am not easy to charge. How wonderful to spontaneously confront and open your mind to what you follow and love. Thank you to all of you who, with simplicity and the same enthusiasm as me, contributed to making these days saturated with colour.
A special thank you to Lisa who performed her job quietly, silently and made everything smooth and perfect with great sweetness and kindness. I love people who can work in the shadows!!!
Vinicio Fosser
Perhaps the cause is my Venetian origin, but I have always seen Venice as a theatre.
A place of performance, a rich and golden stage where a play is staged that repeats itself endlessly every day. I looked at it with these eyes, without pity, as if waiting for a spectacle – grotesque features – of a mortal city.
About the Laboratory…
It is a rare occurrence to be with strangers and to find oneself well in such intense and prolonged proximity. I, who am allergic to adolescent company, felt sweetly involved in a common work, in a pooling of experiences and hopes.
I am grateful to all of you for the gentleness with which you have confessed your worlds, opening up generous glimpses of your even personal lives. Another thank you because I have seen things from you that I would not have arrived at, soon, on my own.
Many thanks to Gabriele and to the Barbara because there has never been a lack of ‘something more’ in their style of conducting this workshop, a further stimulus, gentle but intense, thoughtful and encouraging, accompanied however always by the invitation of an almost Calvinist rigour to an individual commitment to ‘work well done, well thought out and well conducted’. Finally, thank you for the serenity that accompanied these days, which is not usual in my experiences.
Natascia Aquilano
I had never been to Venice and was visiting it for the first time. I walked through it, immersing myself in a city that seemed to consume itself at every step in a slow crumbling. I believed I was inside a dream but not because of its beauty, but because of its ephemeral atmosphere. And like inside a dream, in its own space and time, I tried to grasp it until it faded away.
About the Laboratory…
Every time I attend these meetings, it almost seems to paralyse me, because everything is ‘too much’, even the most trivial thing, so I need time to metabolise and make every moment, every word, every silence my own, and I never get tired!
Orlini know how to give, know how to give a lot … Thanks.
Thank you Barbara for joining us so simply, and for your knowledge that you generously gave us. Thank you Lisa for your infinite sweetness. Thank you all, so different and incredibly unique for the comparisons exchanged.
Mariapia Vannucci
A city that knows and must welcome: tourists, foreigners, colour seekers, and inventors of life. Venice is glittering and unsparing in its weaknesses. Proud of its past as an enlightened republic, generous in delegating its deepest symbols to unsuspecting hands. A city that can take you in but is in a hurry to get you out.
About the Laboratory…
Even if the weather conditions had a hand in it, it was a fruitful and multifaceted workshop in insights, observations, thinking and synthesis. I would like to thank the Master (Gabriele) and Barbara Silbe who, with very few jokes, put us at ease and in a position to blend in.
