EARTH Foundation presents Peccioli: racconti di una stagione, the exhibition of photographic projects resulting from a residency program in the municipality of Peccioli (Pisa), which involved photographers Karim El Maktafi (1992, Desenzano del Garda, Brescia), Camilla Ferrari (1992, Milan), Sara Scanderebech (1985, Nardò, Lecce) and Riccardo Svelto (1989, Bagno a Ripoli, Florence). After a first summer presentation in the Tuscan village, the photographic exhibition will arrive in Verona at EARTH Foundation from 27 March to 21 September 2025.
Curated by Giangavino Pazzola, curator at CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia di Torino, with the collaboration of Giulia Adami, Peccioli: racconti di una stagione is a wide-ranging project launched in July 2023 in collaboration with the Municipality of Peccioli (Pisa) and the support of Fondazione Peccioliper e Belvedere Spa.
The project first developed with four artist residencies involving photographers Karim El Maktafi, Camilla Ferrari, Sara Scanderebech and Riccardo Svelto. Each of them has told the territory and the community of Peccioli through a series of shots, to promote sustainability values, Responsibility and sharing that not only characterize one of the most innovative models of territorial development but also the assonance of vision with EARTH Foundation. Following this experience of observation and production on the territory dedicated to the Tuscan town, winner among other things also of the competition promoted by Rai 3 “Il Borgo dei Borghi 2024”, a corpus of images was selected to reflect the vision and personal research experience of the four photographers. More than fifty photographs were exhibited in June 2024 at the former car market of Peccioli in a path that has revealed the social, structural and cultural dynamics that make the village a place attentive to the care and regeneration of its territory, published in a volume edited by Edizioni EARTH.
The works are now presented again in the spaces of Earth Foundation in a renewed exhibition and with a special surprise designed for the public: a two-day workshop (Saturday 25 and Sunday 25 May 2025, participation fee) led by Camilla Ferrari under the title THE HIDDEN TREASURE, which deepens the reading of the project and explores contemporary photographic production techniques.
The works
The series Building Mountains by Karim El Maktafi explores the dynamics of management of the waste disposal and treatment plant of Belvedere Spa, an icon of the territory. Immortalizing people, machinery and views, the artist returns the essence of a landscape in transformation, dominated by artificial hills of sand and clay produced by the company as part of an innovative practice of which he is a model on a national scale.
Camilla Ferrari with the installation A Constellation on Earth draws inspiration from the discovery of an asteroid renamed “331011 Peccioli” by researchers at the Libbiano Astronomical Observatory to analyze the landscape surrounding the village and its hamlets, in a narrative flow of fantasy where references, symbols and metaphors unite the terrestrial reality to the infinity of the cosmos.
The photographic work of Sara Scanderebech builds a geography of landfill, understood as a space where nature intersects with technology. In Landfill black pipes, tracks, details of machinery and factories in the distance are mixed with the fauna that slowly takes possession of the environment, from wild plants to insects and small animals.
Riccardo Svelto pauses with Presenze sul fiume che attraversa il borgo as a space at the center of the activities and personal events of generations of young people who have lived in Peccioli. As a reference point and an integral part of the landscape, the river becomes the subjective and collective stage for thousands of stories never told, from the first loves to the emotion for independence.