Quod Vides, Totum
Madder Red by Dalya Islam curated a groundbreaking exhibition of the up-and-coming Italian photographer Teresa Emanuele on behalf of BMG Foundation in partnership with the Italian Consulate in Jeddah.
Teresa Emanuele has participated in photography festivals as far afield as Moscow and has held solo exhibitions in Rome and Venice. She has also exhibited at the premier art event worldwide at the Roman pavilion of the 54th Venice Biennale.
The exhibition Quod Vides, Totum was held in Jeddah from 5th-14th March with an associated education programme for children and young adults. Consisting of an entirely new body of elegant and thought provoking work: 26 works of art in total including 2 kinetic installations and 1 video work.
Emanuele’s monochromatic images of nature are carefully conceived and painstakingly captured. She is known for marrying sophisticated images and conceptual thought with contemporary media.
Emanuele prints on acrylic glass, a material that lends richness to an otherwise flat image by means of the shadows cast by the image itself adding a powerful three-dimensional quality to what would otherwise be a traditional photograph.
Emanuele also exhibits her signature kinetic installations known as shadowboxes where the shadows become animated by a simple, delicate mechanism hidden in the frame. The most exciting aspect of this new body of work is the special commission of a video work for the exhibition in Jeddah, Acqua In Obsucritate.
The title of the exhibition Quod Vides, Totum (literally All That Is Seen) is drawn from the writings of the major Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger, 4 BC – 64 AD. Seneca’s discussions of nature hold a particular fascination for the artist and drive the concepts behind the images. Seneca proposes that the study of nature is ultimately the study of humanity. He suggests that in observing the world around us we free ourselves from the bonds of every-day concerns, the lust for power and material possessions.
Emanuele’s modus operandi is the physical enactment of this study, the study of man through nature. Devoting days to woods and wild landscapes the artist captures the trees, the sunlight, the leaves, shadows and running water in an effort to deliver both beautiful pictures and subtle metaphors.