SERENA VITTORINI

— Tapes You Watch When You Are Alone —

Personal identity is not something unitary and stable over times and in different situations. Identity is influenced by significant interpersonal relationships, by contexts of belonging and by how each individual decides to adapt his/her way of being as a certain public and historical image and character.

Human beings not only have cognitive and emotional experiences, but also are able to process and coherently integrate the external and internal information that concerns them and to codify it in the form of autobiographical memory, conferring to the subjective story, retrospective coherence and future continuity. Also, personal identity is affected by a system of shared rules and signs through which people develop their social and cultural behavior. It is related to the place and history where the people live.

The development of Polish cultural identity is inseparable from the history of a country that is at the crossroads between Central and Eastern Europe and always changed its borders. Over time, Poland had to suffer foreign oppressions, territorial divisions and invasions that have deeply marked the soul of Polish people. These and other historical events represent their struggle for the independence and define their strong cultural identity.

My visual work connects different generations of Polish people with places as a symbol of historical events and with old documents which are proofs of the past of this land. I combined these portraits, landscapes and documents to make viewers imagine their own stories and recall their memories, which construct our identity in both individual and social levels.

BIOGRAFIA

Serena Vittorini was born in L’Aquila and lives in Brussels. After graduating in Psychology she decided to devote herself entirely to the study of photography, at ISFCI and IED Milan. She lives photography lives as a research, as a tool to tell in a personal way the places and faces of those who meet her path. At the center of her work always emerges the interest for the individual who is sometimes isolated and extrapolated from his social context to direct attention to its typical characteristics, other times submerged by the surrounding environment. In recent years she has been interested in the analysis of the processes of modification of places and the relationship between human presence and representation of urban space.

EDUCATION

Master in Advanced Photography at IED – Milan, 2017

Diploma in Photography at ISFCI – Rome, 2013 – 2016

Bachelor Degree in Psychological Sciences and Techniques at G. d’Annunzio University – Chieti Pescara, 2009 – 2012

PUBLICATIONS

– Panorama – D la Repubblica – Creators, VICE – La Nuova Ecologia – Internazionale – Huffingtonpost – Witness Journal – Maps Magazine – IlPost – MusicLetter – Life Framer Journal – F-Stop Magazine – Il Centro – ArtPil – Yanez Magazine – NikonPhotography

AWARDS
2019 Winner – Alghero Street Photography Awards, Research Photography –

Sardinia, Italy

2018 Finalist – Il Reportage Photojournalism Award – Rome, Italy

2017 Nominee Photogrvphy Grant 2017

2017 Winner Urban Photo Award 2017, Trieste, Italy

2017 Winner FINI 2017 – International De La Imagen Festival – Pachuca, Mexico

2017 Winner Slideluck – Naples, Italy

2017 Winner Slideluck – Prato, Italy

2017 Winner LiberAzioni Festival Award – Torino, Italy

2017 Winner of the prize “Vedere l’altro, vedere la Shoah”, University of Calabria, Italy

2016 Open Call Winner Photography Festival “Roma, il mondo”, MACRO (Museum of Contemporary Art) Rome, Italy

2016 Winner of “CHANGE”, Off SiteArt/Art Bridge New York for L’Aquila, Italy

2015 Winner ACER “Ri-generiamo Roma: Sfumature di habitat” award – Rome, Italy

EXHIBITIONS
2019 “SINEQUANON”, Recyclart – Bruxelles, Belgium

2019 “SINEQUANON”, Knust Festival – Bruxelles, Belgium

2018 “Ricostruzioni. Architettura, città e paesaggio nell’epoca delle distruzioni”, La Triennale di Milano – Milano, Italy

2018 “Refresh”, Palatul Culturii – Iași, Romania

2018 “SINEQUANON”, 29 Arts in Progress Gallery – Milan, Italy

2018 “Tapes You Watch When You Are Alone”, Bałtycka Galeria Sztuki

Współczesnej – Ustka, Poland

2018 “SINEQUANON”, Cultuurcentrum Mechelen” – Mechelen, Belgium

2018 “SINEQUANON”, Magazzini Fotografici – Naples, Italy

2017 “Come in cielo, così in terra”, FINI International Festival De La Imagen – Pachuca, Mexico

2017 “Più Culture – Migranti nel Municipio II”, Goethe Institut – Rome, Italy 2017 “Foo dëkk”, Open House Rome – ISFCI – Rome, Italy
2017 “Foo dëkk”, Centre of Jewish Culture – Rome, Italy
2017 “SINEQUANON”, Fotoconfronti Off – Bibbiena, Italy

2016 “Come in cielo, così in terra”, Acta International Gallery – Rome, Italy 2016 “Enlightening Surfaces”, 291 Est Gallery – Rome, Italy
2016 “Enlightening Surfaces”, Polarville – L’Aquila, Italy
2016 “COSA”, 001 – Rome, Italy

2016 “Foo dëkk”, MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art – Rome, Italy

2016 “Four Seasons”, Italian Cultural Institute – London, UK
2015 “DRD4- 7R – Futuro anteriore”, Palazzo delle Esposizioni – Rome, Italy

2015 “LA GRANDE ALLUSIONE : 1974-2015”, MLAC Museum Laboratory of Contemporary Art -Rome, Italy

Project Description