Prize Italy Photo Award 2019
Best Portfolio’ category winning
The project consists of fifty-nine images taken over 15 years in five Latin American countries (Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador). About 80% is analogue, and the rest is digital. The photographs are fragments of an intimate and personal journey and represent the author’s view of the ambiguities and contrasts of the Latin American continent.
This vision is strongly influenced by his professional background: active for more than 20 years as a delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, he has worked in many countries in war situations or armed conflicts, confronting violence, human cruelty and its consequences daily. A long journey through the streets of Central and South America becomes a thought, stage and enchantment in the representation of the immense power of life. People, animals and demons inhabit these lands in constant struggle, between life and death, the carnal and the divine, ecstasy and screaming.
All this is in Giorgio Negro’s shots, and as is often the case, the photographer’s face can be found in his images.
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BIOGRAPHY
Giorgio Negro was born in Turin on 7 September 1959, to an Italian father and Swiss mother. He spent his childhood and youth in the quiet environment of the Italian province, in Susa (TO). In 1986, he graduated in Electronic Engineering at the Polytechnic of Turin and soon after moved to Locarno, Switzerland, where he worked for 10 years in a small industrial automation company. In 1995, he left his profession forever and started working as a Delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). He is sent on missions to many parts of the world to carry out humanitarian work in war zones: Chechnya, Colombia, Peru, Chad, Sudan, Israel, Libya, Iraq and other countries.
In 2005, Giorgio met Ernesto Bazan, the famous Italian photographer, who introduced him to bw photography and became his friend and mentor. It was the beginning of a great passion and a magical journey through the world of humanist photography. In the little free time that his job allowed him, Giorgio began photographing in Latin America, alone or during workshops with Ernesto Bazan and Dario De Dominicis.
In 2008, the French magazine Réponses Photo published a selection of images from the first phase of his project on Latin America. Between 2013 and 2017, Giorgio took part in a photo-video project with photographer Dario De Dominicis and Cuban-Brazilian filmmaker Margarita Hernandez, focusing on the Catholic religion in northeast Brazil and the role of photography in the popular imagination. Images from this project were exhibited in Rome (Officine Fotografiche) and Rio De Janeiro (Centro Cultural da Justiça Federal). A documentary on this project will see the light in 2020, for Globo Film do Brasil.
In 2019, the project is completed and published as a book entitled Pathos, for Bazan Photo Publishing.
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Enhancement and diffusion award
of Italian photographic culture
On 15 December 2019, the final event of the year took place: the presentation of the finalist projects selected in the Portfolio Readings hosted in the various stages by some of the largest Italian photography festivals and the award ceremony for the winners of the 5th Edition of the ITALY PHOTO AWARD
Italy Photo Award, founded by Cecilia Pratizzoli and created to enhance and disseminate Italian photographic culture, is among today’s most important national photographic realities. Collaborating with the biggest Italian festivals hosting the Portfolio Readings and the best professionals in the field offers young authors a unique opportunity for visibility and professional growth.
Over 20,000 images, submitted by professional photographers from all over Italy, competed in the 2019 edition. The Prize aims to be a training and growth opportunity for new authors as well as an important artistic and cultural initiative for our country. During the event, which took place on 15 December 2019 at the MACRO Museum in Rome, the presentation of the finalist projects and the nomination of the overall winners, respectively in the ‘Best Portfolio’ and ‘Young Talent’ categories, took place, thus winning the ITALY PHOTO AWARD 2019.
