ARMANDO BABANI – THE EFFECT OF CONFLICT

A child “imprisoned” in his own home by a flood, endless caravans of exhausted refugees, Edi Rama as a hooded artist like a teenager before a plate of pasta, a weary and disillusioned Schumacher after a race, the bust of the former dictator no longer standing, with the crowd on top of it, thousands of ropes hung for desperate people abandoning our country. Armando Babani’s photography has this face too — or more precisely, it holds the millions of faces that make up our history of recent years. All of us grew up with his images; to all of us he has shown every truth of his own, which over the years, cyclically, has always coincided with historical truth.

Polyhedric and singular, among the most important Albanian photographers, one who never tires and continues to impress as a critical and participating observer, contributing to give a voice to those who might otherwise be ignored and pushing us to reflect on the complexity of our world, constantly in development. As a photojournalist published everywhere but also as an engaged artist, Armando Babani continues a body of work begun decades ago, as he often puts it: – “To photograph the world as he sees it, without constructing the stories”.

The concept of this exhibition is to offer the audience of Orvieto Fotografia a glimpse into the instability of today’s world – more precisely, this exhibition gives us the opportunity to examine the long-term consequences of conflicts on our society, with particular emphasis on the transformations and wounds that emerge over time. The exhibition also explores the way in which the photographer’s work documents the continuous traces of conflict in everyday life, in relationships and in social dynamics. More broadly, the exhibition offers the Italian public – through the example of the “country across the way”, namely Albania – the opportunity to explore and understand the complex interfaces of global society, projected onto everyday life. So as to then understand, respectively, the complexities in the everyday life of Bucha, in the Middle East, the refugee crisis, the great geopolitical tensions, the human condition in the post-Covid19 era, the climate crisis with its extreme events and, why not, our own peripheries, the social misery of our youth and the abandonment of our elderly. To understand how images can become powerful tools to denounce, to draw attention to unjust situations and to the suffering of every individual. To understand the roots, the geneses of conflicts and the instability of our time, striving at the same time to investigate their underlying causes and their long-term impacts on society. And even more, focusing on human resilience and the stories of hope and courage that emerge even in difficult contexts.

This solo exhibition, Armando Babani’s first in Italy, thus comes within the framework of the collaboration between the Fokus Award photography festival and FIOF Italia and, more concretely, by continuing the mission of internationalizing Albanian photography and showcasing our artistic values abroad. The exhibition opens on 15 March 2024 in Orvieto, Italy, under the care of FIOF and Fokus Award, its director Arben Alliaj, and curated by Elton Koritari and EJAlbum. It will remain open until 20 April 2024, to then continue being exhibited in Albania afterwards.