Isole Nere. Fotografien von Luana Rigolli | Internationale Photoszene Festival

In the organizer's words:

The Italian Cultural Institute Cologne is participating in the International Photoszene Cologne Festival (May 16 - June 15, 2025) with the exhibition Isole Nere by Luana Rigolli, which will be on display at the IIC from May 15 to October 2, 2025.

The exhibition contains a selection of photographs taken by the artist in 2017 on various Italian volcanic islands. The images show landscapes and details of Capraia, Ischia, Linosa, Lipari, Panarea, Pantelleria, Ponza, Procida, Salina, Stromboli, Ustica and Ventotene.

Opening hours:

May 15 - October2 , 2025
Mon.-Thurs. 9.00-13.00 / 13.30-17.00
Fri. 9.00-14.00

Opening: Wednesday, May 14 19.00. In the presence of the artist.
With Italian aperitif.
Free admission

Volcanic islands are solidified lava.
I imagine that under each island there is a channel that leads directly into the earth's mantle, the layer of our planet that consists of more or less solid magma, and that all these channels form a kind of root network that connects the islands to each other, even if they are hundreds of kilometers apart.
I think that volcanic islands are also a kind of upside-down comets that have broken away from the center of the Earth with their trail of molten magma and landed in the sea.
Perhaps they are so similar because they are all made of the same matter, have the same energy and carry the same dreams...
Volcanoes have a magnetic attraction.
The volcanic structures with their rocks contain large amounts of minerals that can generate such strong magnetic fields that the compass no longer works properly.
People are sensitive in different ways... I think I react strongly to the magnetism of volcanic rocks.

On all the Italian volcanic islands I found the same colors, the same vegetation, the same animals and the same people, which created a pleasant confusion in my head.
When I'm on an island, I often forget which one it is; I get confused and think I'm on another island at the same time, as if in a constant game of déjà vu and cross-references.

Luana Rigolli was born in Piacenza in 1983 and now lives in Rome. She studied civil engineering, but after a few years in the profession she decided to use photography as a means of telling the story of her surroundings rather than continuing to alter the landscape through construction. Her photographic analysis deals with the historical interactions between people and landscape. In 2017 she studied photojournalism at the Fondazione Studio Marangoni in Florence in the Collettivo Terraproject. From 2013 to 2018 she worked as a freelancer in various photo studios. She has been a freelance photographer since 2018. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad. She has published in various magazines such as National Geographic, Mare, La Ricerca, Il Post, Gestalten, Il Manifesto, La Repubblica and in T Magazine of the New York Times.