The way to represent, conceptualize, criticize, overturn, and dissect the relationship between human beings and their environment has been at the center of Urbanautica's visual and anthropological research for over ten years. Our Annual Institute Awards Contest is always an opportunity to collect addresses, ideas, perspectives, arguments, criticisms, awareness, and possibilities. Each of these also carries further chances for in-depth research and investigations on different approaches to the medium, while offering keys to interpret the theme, which is an excellent stimulus for our observatory. We like to dive into our shorlisted and special mentions lists to find input for our Journal.
© Camilla de Maffei from the series "Delta"
Go further, feel the places, grasp their essence, like breathing the intangible. For the "Anthropological Archive," Giulia Bernardi (special mention Urbanautica Awards 2021 - category: Anthropology and Territories) uses an almost obsessive method. "The work documents the rediscovery of one's identity through the surrounding landscape and shape of the territory. Through a process of obsessive and meticulous cataloging of the landscape." The series releases an empathy for geology, a sort of geomancy, as a remedy for a difficult coexistence with the earth. A look that frames suspended and lyrical moments of contemplation. A slow re-appropriation of nature that also passes through plastic compositions, almost affirmations of a different desire to relate.
© Giulia Bernardi from the series "Archivio Antroplogico"
@ Giulia Bernardi from the series "Archivio Antropologico"
© Giulia Bernardi from the series "Archivio Antropologico"
The approach adopted by Pasquet Matthias in his coastal exploration of a familiar landscape is immersive. A very expressive and emotional vision, almost musical. Signs, thoughts, and superimpositions alternate in reconstructing a memory that becomes present and, therefore, significant. A nature that makes sense from a revealed intimacy. "This fragmentary body of work, combining photographies, 3D printings and family archives, questions the spatial dimension of memory in a transgenerational context." The series "Dynamique des plage" (special mention Urbanautica Awards 2021 - category: Memories and Traditions) also shows us the possibility of working through photography in a non-linear dimension of time.
© Pasquet Matthias from the series "Dynamique des plage"
© Pasquet Matthias from the series "Dynamique des plage"
© Pasquet Matthias from the series "Dynamique des plage"
Felipe Muñoz (special mention Urbanautica Awards 2021 - category: Nature, Environment and Perspectives) translates the drama of desertification in Chile through a series of landscape views in which light plays a fundamental role in restoring a temporal suspension that smacks of arid helplessness. "In the Coquimbo region, drought and desertification resulting from the exploitation, extraction, and abuse of resources have materialized in 3,495,300 hectares at risk, thus evidencing water scarcity and lack of vegetation. A process that, although dating back more than 30 years, today seems to have no turning back." The landscape stands out in dramatic normality, extremely objective, an uninhabited silence that manifests that standing and watching the world while it dries under a scorching sun.
© Felipe Muñoz from the series "El avance de la desertificación en el norte semiárido de Chile"
© Felipe Muñoz from the series "El avance de la desertificación en el norte semiárido de Chile"
© Felipe Muñoz from the series "El avance de la desertificación en el norte semiárido de Chile"
The Danube delta is the largest estuary in Europe. Few think it, and few know it. Camilla de Maffei (special mention Urbanautica Awards 2021 - category: Anthropology and Territories) chooses for it a grotesque, abstract, romantic, lyrical narrative. "The delta region is sparsely populated and lacks basic infrastructure. The few villages scattered across the territory can only be reached by boat and sink into darkness as soon as the sun goes down. Living in the delta means living in symbiosis with the landscape and its changes; Like minotaurs, the inhabitants live immersed in this labyrinth, enduring the emptiness it imposes." The author outlines the relationship between people and the environment with strong and expressive brushstrokes as if to denounce these places' marked, singular, and passionate characters.
© Camilla de Maffei from the series "Delta"
© Camilla de Maffei from the series "Delta"
© Camilla de Maffei from the series "Delta"
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