Given the situation of general uncertainty caused by the Covid -19 pandemic (in particular with regard to the rules of social distance), the heart of the fifth edition of the Photo Vogue Festival (PVF), organized by Vogue Italia, moves to one digital platform specially designed for the event, which will host exhibitions, talks and screenings.

From 30 October to 22 November 2020 a selection of photographs from the two main exhibitions will also be exhibited outdoors, on the gates of the perimeter of the Gardens of Porta Venezia, to interface and interact with the city of Milan.
The exhibitions will be visible in the nerve centers of the city of Milan on Maxi Led Urban Vision, during the same period.

From 19 November the complete exhibitions will be available on the online platform: photovoguefestival.vogue.it. From 19 to 22 November the platform will also host events, conferences and portfolio reviews. As with every previous edition, the festival will be a unique opportunity for fashion and photography enthusiasts to get in touch with professionals in the sector, from artists to curators, and learn more about the contemporary photographic landscape.

"In recent years, the Photo Vogue Festival has represented an important opportunity for many young people, who cultivate a passion for shooting, to deal with the big names who have transformed fashion photography into a true artistic expression capable of capturing the changes of our time "so theCouncilor for Labor, Productive Activities, Fashion and Design Policies, Cristina Tajani which continues: "An appointment, which in the midst of a pandemic and in the presence of a new sociality to be rewritten, has been able to renew itself by combining in the best possible presence and online events to continue to be an important moment to enhance the creativity of Made in Italy and from Milan".

Photo Vogue

Photo Vogue was born in 2011 from an idea of Alessia Glaviano, Brand Visual Director of Vogue Italia. At a time when photography was already omnipresent online, Glaviano realizes that what is missing is a curated platform dedicated to it.
Conceived as a community characterized by a strong sense of belonging, to date, Photo Vogue has over 230,000 members, including amateur and professional photographers from all over the world, united by a passion for photography and the desire to help each other and grow together. Anyone can register in Photo Vogue and upload their images that can be of any photographic genre, from portraiture to reportage, passing through fashion photography and street photography.

The pool of extraordinary image makers from around the world and the related curatorial activity of the platform have made Photo Vogue an excellent example of diversity and inclusion behind the photographic lens. Over time, many of Photo Vogue's photographers have grown to become among the most interesting voices in the contemporary photographic landscape and now sign editorials and branded content for the most prestigious international magazines. Photo Vogue's mission has always been to support photographic talent and build a future of diversity and inclusion in the world of fashion and image. In order to create both a virtual and physical temporal space that could bring together the community of artists and advance the dialogue on the promotion of creativity, diversity and ethics within photography and the visual arts, in 2016, Milan took place the first edition of the Photo Vogue Festival. The event represented the first international fashion photography festival dedicated to the common ground between ethics and aesthetics, linked to an authoritative magazine able to involve the entire city of Milan with talks, exhibitions and photographic initiatives. The 4 editions of the festival in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 met with great success with audiences and critics.

The event is sponsored by the municipality of Milan and is made possible thanks to the support of Audi, main partner of the initiative since the first edition, and of the following partners:

During the days of the event on the PVF platform there will be a meeting moderated by the Brand Visual Director of Vogue Italia Alessia Glaviano and dedicated to 1895 Coffee Designers by Lavazza, the new brand of the Turin Group in which craftsmanship and technological innovation come together to give life to Specialty Coffee of absolute excellence. It will be an opportunity to meet leading figures from the world of art and food, who will guide viewers on a journey to discover the universe of 1895 Coffee Designers by Lavazza. Keywords of this meeting? Excellence, innovation and sustainability, values ​​that unite the Piedmontese brand with the fashion magazine.

New York-based photographer and floral designer Doan Ly, founder of the a.p. bio, was chosen by Vogue Italia e Xerjoff, a prestigious Turin-based research fragrance brand, to interpret five of the brand's iconic perfumes with its artistic sensitivity: Amber & Rose, Erba Pura, Golden Green, Irisss and More than Words. The result is dreamlike still life that evokes, thanks to lush colors and shapes, the olfactory and visual sensations that only Xerjoff perfumes can give, thanks to the unmistakable mix of high quality olfactory dimensions and sophisticated design.

Xiaomi, world leader in technology, and Vogue Italia have chosen photographer Riccardo Dubizzante to highlight all the potential of the flagship model of the Mi 10T smartphone family. Through 6 photographs with a strong expressive quality, Dubettante has experienced the infinite creative possibilities offered by the incredible features and new filters of the Mi 10T Pro photographic software, including Clone, Long Exposure, Light Painting and Cyberpunk. Through these fashion photography images taken with Mi 10T Pro it is in fact possible to appreciate the extraordinary quality of the camera compartment capable of making the subjects represented unique for the eyes of the beholder.

ENGINE, with the artistic direction of Vogue Italia, has chosen a young 3D artist to give life to the new ready-to-wear clothing line which, taking inspiration from the racing universe, presents a street aesthetic declined in a contemporary key. This is only the first step of the collaboration: soon the photo editors of Vogue Italia will identify a talented photographer from the Photo Vogue community, which has over 230,000 users from all over the world, to shoot the campaign of the brand created by the visionary entrepreneur Paolo Dalla Mora .

Urban Vision, a leading media company in Europe in sponsored restorations and the enhancement of cultural heritage through integrated communication projects. For the duration of the open air photographic exhibition at the Giardini di Porta Venezia, the Maxi Led Urban Vision located in the most central areas of Milan will bring the creativity of PVF to life even outdoors, offering an authentic open-air exhibition on an exclusive Digital circuit. Out of Home.

Special thanks to LINKE who made all the prints on display in the Giardini di Porta Venezia. LINKE. is a laboratory of production, digital printing and diffusion of photography in Milan through constant work with international experts and exhibitions of talents of contemporary photography.

Radio Monte Carlo is the official radio of Photo Vogue Festival.

Yes Milan, Institutional Partner.

The 30 artists on display

Miloushka Bokma | Kennedi Carter | Imraan Christian | Jasmine Clarke | Imogen Freeland | Jillian Freyer | Julia Fullerton-Batten | Devashish Gaur | Emma Hartvig | Neha Hirve | Sophie Kietzmann | M’hammed Kilito | Anu Kumar | Hassan Kurbanbaev | Andras Ladocsi | Myles Loftin | Daniel Jack Lyons | Amber Pinkerton | Bettina Pittaluga | Roselena Ramistella | Luis Alberto Rodriguez | Kirstin Schmitt & Juan A. Otamendiz | Aki-Pekka Sinikoski | Cécile Smetana Baudier | Leonard Suryajaya | Nick Van Tiem | Silvana Trevale | Isabelle Wenzel | Devin Yalkin | Alice Zoo

"All in this together" presents the projects of 30 photographers gathered around the common theme of hope, solidarity, empathy and a sense of community that we have rediscovered while the Covid -19 epidemic scourged, nation after nation, the whole world.
The true meaning of the word community, the true sense of what ultimately defines our humanity, is found in the notes of the Milanese trumpeter who plays "O mia bela Madunina" at the window of his Milanese home during the lockdown, in the improbable silence of the streets, now emptied of people and traffic. When everything seems to collapse and every possible meaning and sense seem to be shipwrecked, only the total, absolute gratuitousness of art, its being refractory to any utility, its being so tragically ephemeral and extemporaneous, can make us rediscover the meaning of life through catastrophe , helping us to "see the stars again". At the heart of this miracle rests another decisive word of the Communitas lexicon: that of gift. Because the music of this trumpeter is simply this: a gift, made of nothing and which changes nothing in concrete reality, nor in the threat that hangs over us, nor in the anguish that grips us. But a gift like this, which it would not be an exaggeration to define as love – and what else is love but a gift – not in spite of but thanks to its exquisite gratuitousness and fragility, is the only thing that can transform the bonds between people, to make them find again in another space where the communitas takes the place of solitude. It seems nothing but that's all.
The 30 photographers were selected through scouting on Photo Vogue, the photographic platform of Vogue.it, by an international jury of experts with different backgrounds, visions and origins, in order to guarantee a perspective that is as inclusive as possible.

The jury

Aaron Philip (Model), Alessia Glaviano (Brand Visual Director, Vogue Italia, L'Uomo Vogue), Alfredo De Stéfano (Founder and Director, Luz del Norte Fotografía), Anastasia Taylor-Lind (Photojournalist), Antwaun Sargent (Writer and Critic ), Azu Nwagbogu (Founder and Director, LagosPhoto Festival), Damarice Amao (Curator), Daniel C. Blight (Writer and Lecturer), Daniella Zalcman (Documentary Photographer), Ekow Eshun (writer, critic and independent curator), Emanuele Farneti ( Editor-in-chief, Vogue Italia, L'Uomo Vogue, Vogue.it), Ferdinando Verderi (Creative Director, Vogue Italia), Fred Ritchin (Dean Emeritus, International Center of Photography), He Yining (curator and writer), Ibrahim Kamara (Fashion Editor), Ihiro Hayami (Founder, T3 PHOTO FESTIVAL), Irina Chmyreva (Co-founder and Artistic Director, PhotoVisa), James Estrin (The New York Times), Jillian Mercado (Model), Josh Brolin (Actor), Karen Elson (Model), Kimberly Drew (Writer, Curator, and Activist), Lars Boering (managing rector, World Press Photo Foundation), Laura Roumanos (Executive Producer and Co-Founder, United Photo Industries and Photoville), Marcel Feil (artistic director, Foam), Marina Paulenka (Artistic Director, UNSEEN Foundation), Michael Famighetti (Aperture Magazine) , Michael Van Horne (Director, Image Archive at Art + Commerce), Nathan Jurgenson (sociologist and social media theorist), Paolo Sorrentino (Director), Pierpaolo Piccioli (Creative Director, Valentino), Shannon Ghannam (Global Education Director, Magnum Photos) , Simon Bainbridge (Editor-in-chief, British Journal of Photography), Simon Baker (Director, MEP), Sunil Gupta (photographer, curator and Lecturer), Tasneem Alsultan (Photographer), Willy Ndatira (designer, creative consultant)

"IN THE PICTURE – Shifting perspectives in fashion photography"
Curated by Alexandra von Fuerst, Camila Falquez, Nadine Ijewere and Ruth Ossai

If every image is inherently political, the gesture of choosing what to show and how to show it inevitably also becomes political. Fashion photography is a complex and layered art, a dream factory that increasingly becomes the theater of collective identities. Starting from this awareness, for the fifth edition of the Photo Vogue Festival, we decided to explore a new way to analyze and deepen it: through the dialogue between four of its most brilliant protagonists.

Alexandra von Fuerst, Camila Falquez, Nadine Ijewere and Ruth Ossai are “socially conscious fashion photographers”. They are part of a new generation of artists whose aesthetics are intrinsically a hybrid of genres: in their shots, fashion constantly dialogues with journalism and visual art, and with an introjected need to balance the planes of representation. The work of Camila, Nadine, Ruth and Alexandra talks about gender, feminism and racial imbalances without ever being didactic or banal – on the contrary, it manages to be powerful, intense, pervaded with an original, shining elegance.

There are four artists who work in an industry, that of fashion, which is rethinking from its foundations, and who are not mere observers of this change but among the main driving forces.

For PVF 2020 we have decided to give space to their visions by inaugurating a four-voice dialogue in which the authors are not only protagonists of the exhibition but also curators of the same. The photos exhibited, the exhibition mode and the themes explored are the result of a creative collaboration, including calls on Zoom, shared folders in Dropbox and messages on Whatsapp.