Romano Cagnoni Award - Romano Cagnoni

RCA 2022 CONCEPT: FREEDOM

A theme that characterizes the history of humanity, as a condition acquired from birth or an ideal to be pursued and affirmed through social movements. Freedom is today, as never before, at the center of a reflection, which takes place around broader issues. Photojournalism is first and foremost a manifestation of freedom of expression and movement. Freedoms that are often still denied, if we think of phenomena, such as: migratory flows, the possibility of accessing and guaranteeing health care, episodes of racism, the impact of intensive human actions perpetrated on the territory, to the detriment of environmental resources and of the populations involved in certain places on earth. These are just some of the points that need to be addressed. Through photographic narration, freedom becomes an area to be investigated further in order to document its presence, its absence and the path to search for it, as a condition that should concern every living being.

The selected projects will be submitted to an international jury, composed of professionals
and chaired by Patricia Franceschetti Cagnoni.

The experts will meet in order to determine the award winner and assign special mentions.

After studying philosophy and literature in Genoa, Martina Bacigalupo moved to Burundi, East Africa, where she worked for ten years as a freelance photographer, collaborating with magazines, foundations and international organisations.
Her work, which investigates the visual dynamics between Africa and the West, is part of several collections, including the Artur Walther Collection in Germany and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, USA. In 2013, she published the project “Gulu Real Art Studio” with Steidl. Interested in the migration crisis, after several trips to the Mediterranean Sea Martina developed with Canadian researcher Sharon Sliwinski, “The Reverie project”, an ongoing project that questions the representation of migrants.
Martina is part of the VU agency in Paris and holds professional workshops on documentary photo writing in France and abroad. A jury member of international photography competitions, including the latest edition of World Press Photo, she has been photo editor for the French magazine 6 MOIS since 2018.

Martina Bacigalupo

Revue 6MOIS

Elena Boille is deputy editor-in-chief and photo editor of the Italian news magazine Internazionale. Boille graduated with a degree in history of art and she co-founded, in 1993, Internazionale. She’s in charge of the photo desk and of the science pages of the magazine. She has judged many photo competitions and participated in portfolio reviews. Boille also teaches photo editing workshops. Internazionale is a weekly magazine that selects and translates the best journalistic stories from around the world and brings them to an Italian-speaking audience. Every issue features a photographic portfolio, which focuses mainly on long-term projects. Along with photojournalistic and documentary stories, it publishes personal works, conceptual series and more.

Elena Boille

Internazionale Magazine

Born in Milan, after graduating in Fashion Marketing from St Martins School in London, I started working for Grazia Neri Photo Agency, where I represented several international agencies and photographers and I selected new talents for the Agency.
In 2008 I went to New York to work as the agent of documentary photographer Donna Ferrato and representing Grazia Neri’s photographers all through the US, while collaborating with the major publications.
In 2009, I came back to Milano and I started my own Agency, DB, where I represent a few selected photographers and film directors for fashion, advertising and digital campaigns.
I have been invited as a portfolio reviewer at several festivals and as a member part of the Jury of many International Photography Awards, a nominator for the Prix Pictet and I collaborate as a mentor and teacher of visual communication with some photography schools.
From 2009 to 2019 I was the photo editor of the magazine “Touring National Geographic Traveler Italia”.
Since 2021, I am the visual editor of Cesura photo collective for editorial and commercial projects.

Daria Bonera

DB Agency, Cesura

President of Fondazione Romano Cagnoni and Romano Cagnoni Award 2022 Edition President of the Jury.
Patricia Franceschetti was born in Neuchâtel (Switzerland) in 1964, lived and studied in Turin (Italy) until 1984, when she moved to London. While working to earn her living and studying photography, she met and become the assistant to Romano Cagnoni.
While pursuing her own diverse subjects, she began to publish her photographic stories and articles in several magazines and continued to do so as she returned to Italy in 1986, where she won an award, and participates in collective and solo exhibitions. She continued to work alongside Romano, and the two married in 2000. Together they traveled to the most turbulent places and published stories together.
Romano Cagnoni passed away January 30th 2018 and a year and a half later, she founded the Romano Cagnoni Foundation.
When she is home in Pietrasanta, she collaborates with international sculptors on projects and catalogues..

Patricia Franceschetti Cagnoni

Romano Cagnoni Foundation, President of RCA Jury

Jim Casper is the editor-in-chief of LensCulture, one of the leading online destinations to discover contemporary photography from around the world. As an active member in the contemporary photography world, Casper organizes annual international photography events, travels around the world to meet with photographers and review their portfolios, curates art exhibitions, writes about photography and culture, lectures, conducts workshops, serves as an international juror and nominator for key awards, and is an advisor to arts and education organizations.

Jim Casper

LensCulture

MANUEL RIVERA-ORTIZ photographs the poor and disenfranchised around the world. His photographic stories of hardship and hope in some of the world’s poorest nations serve as a testament to the life he himself experienced growing up in backwater barrios of Guayama, Puerto Rico.
Current events, popular culture and mass media tend not to play a role in Rivera-Ortiz’ images. Instead, his work has more to do with the universality of poverty, the presence of hope in adversity and the dignity of people living in distress. The landless, the forgotten, all play an integral role in the greater message of Rivera-Ortiz’ images: that no matter what, all life is sacred and every human on earth deserves the opportunity of a healthy, happy existence.
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz has traveled many corners of the world from India to Kenya, Bolivia to Cuba, Thailand to Turkey and beyond. His major projects include the Mumbai slums Dharavi and Baiganwadi in India, the indigenous Aymara in the Andes and Altiplano regions in Bolivia and his breakout collection on tobacco workers of the Viñales Valley in Cuba.
After leaving Puerto Rico in the fall of 1979, Rivera-Ortiz moved with his family to Holyoke, MA, where he attended Lawrence Elementary School. While living there he also attended summer school for the children of migrant workers at Mount Holyoke College, and at Springfield College where he took up the camera for the first time. In Rochester, NY, Rivera-Ortiz attended Frederick Douglass Junior High School, and East High School.
Images from Rivera-Ortiz’s work are now in the permanent collections of George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. His work is also found at Columbia University’s Joseph Pulitzer Graduate School of Journalism in New York City, Lehigh University Art Galleries collection in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd in Zurich and other private and corporate collections. Rivera-Ortiz’ photography is included in several books including the literary collection titled “Voices in First Person: Reflections On Latino Identity” (Simon & Schuster, New York, 2008). His work can also be found in the Colombian photography publication “Percepciones en Blanco & Negro” (Adéer Lynad, Colombia).
Latest book are “India: A Celebration of Life,” Kehrer Verlag, and the upcoming “Cuba: Finding Home,” Kehrer Verlag.
Rivera-Ortiz is currently working on a trilogy memoir as well as several other photography books. Rivera-Ortiz’ work is in the Hallmark Collection of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

Manuel Rivera Ortiz

The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation

Moshe Rosenzveig OAM. Founder and Creative Director of Head On Foundation, Australia’s premier photographic organisation and the world renown Head On Photo Festival.
Moshe has over 45 years’ experience as a photojournalist, award-winning television producer/director and commercial photographer. He has taught at the University of Technology, the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and others. Moshe has judged for competitions such as OpenWalls, The Walkleys, Tokyo Photography Prize, Sydney’s Art & About, and leads judging for the Head On Photo Awards. He is also a nominator for the Joop Swart Masterclass and Prix Pictet and a regular portfolio reviewer at international festivals, including The Rencontres d’Arles and Pingyao International Photography Festival.
In 2020 Moshe led a rapid adaptation to deliver the world’s first entirely online photo festival reaching 80,000 people globally through 83 live-streamed artist talks & workshops and over 100 online exhibitions.
Moshe received an Order of Australia Medal in 2018 for services to the arts.

Moshe Rosenzveig OM

Head On Photo Festival

Photography critic, editor and curator, she deals with exhibition and publishing projects within visual culture.
After studying Environmental and Territorial Sociology at La Sapienza University of Rome, she completed her studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3. In Paris she deepened the history and criticism of contemporary photography, dedicating herself exclusively to curatorial activity.
In 2010 she has been included in the list of Expert Consultants of the ICCD – Central Institute for the Catalogue and Documentation of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
From the same year she is president of pianoBI.
Since 2012 she has been a member of Progetto Donne e Futuro, for which she represents the Women and Art section.
Among the different organizations and entities with she collaborated: the production company Giart for the Fotografia Italiana documentary film series, distributed by Contrasto; Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Treccani for which she worked on the Contemporary Japanese Photography section, included in the publication Enciclopedia of Contemporary Art.
She has also also curated exhibitions and edited photographic books for several authors, including: Maurizio Galimberti Italyscapes (2013) and Portraits (2016), Francesco Faraci Malacarne (2016), Giuseppe Mastromatteo, Humanscape (2018), Nicola Tanzini TokyoTzukiji (2018), Group Exhibition #18Explorations (2018), Alberto Gandolfo What remains (2019), Romano Cagnoni Human Revelation (2019) and many other.
Portfolio reviewer, member of the jury and nominator of national and international awards, she is contributing editor for Il Fotografo Italian magazine.
Benedetta is a member of The Romano Cagnoni Foundation’s Board of Directors and Director of the Romano Cagnoni Award.

Benedetta Di Donato

Director of Romano Cagnoni Award

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