Margherita Guardi a story of emigration and photos trouvées

These “photos trouvées” tell a story of emigration and emancipation. But also of courage of those who, in every time, cross seas and oceans to find better living conditions.

Margherita Guardi emigrates to the USA in 1923, together with her siblings and this project collects the photos of her family album from her youth in Italy to her American period. In US she will become a photographer. Since then she sent some pictures and some letters which got lost because nobody was concerned about them.

Alter-ego

Margherita Guardi doesn’t exist though. She is a visual alter ego inspired by a great-aunt of mine who left in 1923 for “the Americas”. And whose tracks got lost. None of the members of my family have known or ever seen her life. The few photos of her have been lost and every family member I’ve asked about her, has given me a different version of her story. 

Research, memories, AI and darkroom

After a research on the emigration of my region and a study on the different styles of photography and various formats through the different epochs, I entirely recreated faces, details and the environment, with AI. In the end I printed images on baryta paper in my darkroom.

Margherita Guardi it’s a mixture of antique printing techniques and contemporary technologies in order to make a journey through the Time. The temporal planes overlap: location time, present time and the future of the new technologies coexist all in one imagery. Therefore photographic techniques such as off camera contact prints and the new frontiers of the algorithms will be deeply connected.

The “Margherita Guardi” prints installation view is a sort of quadreria and has been selected for several contests and exhibitions: PNA Premio Nazionale delle Arti 2024; Premio driving energy 2024 https://premiodrivingenergy.terna.it/finalisti/

Festival di fotografia Arturo Ghergo in “Soggetti ritrovati” https://www.festivalarturoghergo.com/mostre/soggetti-ritrovati-mostra-delle-accedemie-di-italia-a-cura-di-vincenzo-izzo/