Event: Giulia Mirandola – Photographic books in childhood

Adults: 19.9.2020, 10am -1pm
Children: 19.9.2020 3-5pm
curated by Giulia Mirandola

foto forum continues its activity through events that stimulate direct contact with the photographic image utilizing a critical analysis of the photography medium. This time we will start with children, using the photographic book, with the help of Giulia Mirandola, an expert in the field who will guide adults and children in reading images. In the morning we will offer the first part as a moment to deepens ones knowledge on the subject, aimed at the older ones: parents, teachers, educators, grandparents, therapists, and librarians and in the afternoon the children will become the protagonists during an encounter with photographic books, and they will exchange their different visions.

morning
Do you see what I see? Reading photographic books in childhood
This meeting aims to investigate which books can arouse and nurture the pleasure of reading photographic books during childhood.
Photography is among the interests of children, as they can immediately grasp its
extraordinary communicative power, the subjective strength, the surprising game of reproducing the visible in a different way from drawing and to underline the existence of the invisible and the unseen, as well as the already seen.
This is why some photographers have endeavored to create books full of photographs, each one different, with few or no words.
In these books that we call “photographic books for children”, the eyes and mind of children can range over for an indefinite time in the domain of photographic images; make the exciting discovery of looking and seeing with your own eyes; listen to what they have looked at and see the eyes of another person; perceive that
a photograph, like all images, is full of voids, gaps, mysteries, and shadows.
Experimental laboratories can arise from photographic books that do not bother to teach children to photograph early, but to develop an eye.
The meeting includes the examination of a case study: Masetto Children Photography, a laboratory of narration and reading of the pre-Alpine landscape, for children, based on photography, developed through closeness to the environment and the active contribution of photographers , naturalists, artists, visual educators, libraries, museums, publishing houses, and bookshops.

afternoon
Do you see what I see?
Do you see what I see? is a laboratory for reading photo books. It takes place outdoors with children. It takes place in the public space and is designed to stimulate interest in reading space through photographic books.
The American writer Annie Dillard writes: “Insist. Examine all things intensely and unceasingly. Probe and probe every object in a work of art. Do not liquidate it, do not flow over it as if it has already been understood, instead follow it in its development until you see it in the mystery of its own specificity and strength. […] Admire the world for not being exhausted in you “(Bompiani, 2018). The best way to interpret the meaning of the proposed activity is to follow Dillard’s vision, which unwittingly or knowingly sheds light on the educational opportunities given by visual literature for children.
To admire the world for its capability to not run out of things to see we discover the company of the world: varied, multifaceted, an alternation of regularity and irregularity that gives rhythm and flavor to everything.
The link between reading “inside the books” and reading “outside the books” will be held in high regard within this path. The ability to connect the stories that live within these two frames – that of the book with images and that of the world with images – allows you to cultivate a particular interest in what lives and happens outside of itself.
We will give rise to an activity that focuses on direct, individual and collective observation, according to a working method based on participation, collaboration, the exchange relationship between children of different ages (6-10 years).

Who is Giulia Mirandola?
Giulia Mirandola has a degree in Conservation of Cultural Heritage. She has worked with Ubulibri, Zanichelli, Hamelin Cultural Association. She curated Catalogone Topipittori from its first edition. In the context of studies on the language of illustrated books, she deals in particular with books for children and books without words. She conducts education workshops for reading images, both for children and adults. She regularly collaborates with libraries, schools, associations, bookstores, publishers, festivals, foundations and cultural institutes, museums, universities, in Italy and abroad. In 2016 she founded the cultural project Il Masetto, for which she is in charge of programming, communication and external relations. In this context, she has created educational experiences for children and adults aimed at practicing the relationship with the mountain landscape starting from visual reading and the narration of places. Masetto children and Masetto children photography are experimental laboratories designed by her for Masetto, which aim to cross the landscape together with illustrators, photographers and scientists, and tell it with new images and words. Since 2019 she has been in in Berlin thanks to MoVE-Mobility towards Europe, a transnational mobility program supported by the European Social Fund, the Autonomous Province of Trento and the Ministry, which allows her to collaborate with the Berlin bookshop Dante Connection. She writes about books, publishing and Berlin libraries for the section Window on Berlin of the cultural magazine of Goethe Institut Italia.

Date: 28.03.2020
Time: Morning 10-13 afternoon 15-17
Sign up: info@foto-forum.it
Price: morning 20€ afternoon free
Spaces available: morning 30 afternoon 20
recipients: morning- adults, parents, teachers, educators, grandparents, therapists, librarians
afternoon- children ages 6 to 10
Languages: Italian, German