This photography and video project, “CONTATTO”, could be the one thing that will give sense to my 2020.
I’m so happy about this that I don’t even know where to start!
Let’s go from the beginning.
As you may know, I have been working in the Mother Tongues Festival since its inception, in 2017, alongside with the founder, Francesca La Morgia.
During these years we realised that Ireland is full of extremely talented artists with various background. So you have people from all around the world who have chosen to live at least part of their lives here, or even people whose roots are somewhere else but were raised or, maybe, born in the Emerald Isle.
So, what?
You see, the thing is that, especially before the explosion of Black Lives Matter this year, there was no representation whatsoever of this part of the artistic scene in the media or in any event, unless it was a labelled event like some inclusion/diversity celebration, but they were not playing the same game, they were not shown as part of the Irish cultural scene.
And having spoken with many of private and public entities, we have heard a lot of “oh, we know they are here, but we don’t know them/we don’t know how to reach them” etc.
So, Francesca during Covid has backed this idea to create a platform where those artists could talk freely and make their voices heard, where they could be seen and contacted.
This project made one of my dreams come true: I’ve been having the opportunity to portray many artists with my camera! I am so grateful for this.
And I have to say I am also quite happy with the result, considering that the session with each artist lasted between 5 and 15 minutes!
Something possibly even more exciting is that I also made videos of these wonderful people and edited them! This is an area completely new for me, which I have started exploring only recently, so it was awesome to have this chance!
You can see one of my favourite videos below. And we will publish a new one every Wednesday for a few months on the dedicated website that I created in record time: contatto.elenacristofanon.com.
The cherry on the cake is that I was awarded the Resilience and Capacity fund by Creative Ireland and the South Dublin County Arts Office for this project! This Award aims to support artists, freelancers and creative practitioners who work in the cultural and creative industries to sustain and build their creative, professional and technical capacity in these challenging times. I’m so proud of this!
All this project has helped me to cope with the anxiety generated by the second Irish lockdown and the anyway difficult situation we are all living right now.
So please, if you haven’t done yet, follow the project on social media!
Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
If you have a project you are working on and you need some promotional material or if you would like to give a new look to your brand, drop me an email (info@elenacristofanon.com) or fill in the form below. I will be happy to assist you!