Richard Mosse: Displaced – Migration conflict. Climate change

Critical situations and places of conflict are photographed and filmed with the use of specific technologies, some originally developed for military purposes, which totally overturn photographic representation, creating images that are striking for their aesthetics but at the same time prompt ethical reflection: when beauty, described by the artist as “the sharpest tool for making people feel something”, is successfully used to recount suffering and tragedy, “an ethical problem arises in the minds of viewers”, who find themselves confused, struck and disorientated. The invisible becomes visible, in all its conflictual nature.

From the very start of his career the artist has explored the theme of visibility, and the way in which we are accustomed to seeing, thinking of and understanding reality.

In the exhibition, the large-format photos and the videos create an immersive experience of rare intensity, surprising the viewer with powerful visual and sound stimuli. What emerges is the extraordinary topicality of Mosse’s work, which, by subverting photographic conventions through the use of technology, makes us observe the invisible: conflicts, migrations, climate change. Fondazione MAST is hosting the first retrospective of the artist Richard Mosse, curated by Urs Stahel. Unique in its visual impact, it up-ends the way in which we represent and perceive reality.

Richard Mosse

Mosse worked as a photographer in various crisis and war zones, such as Pakistan, Haiti and the former Yugoslavia. His best-known photographs are from the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in which he used false-colour films to alienate the landscapes, the people and the jungle.

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MAST Foundation

The MAST Foundation is an international, cultural and philanthropic institution based on Technology, Art and Innovation. Founded in Bologna in 2013, the Foundation aims to promote projects that leverage identity and creativity in order to develop new ideas and create new connections. The founding partners of the MAST Foundation are Coesia, a group of companies specialised in highly innovative industrial and packaging solutions, and the Isabella Seràgnoli Foundation, a private, independent non-profit organisation with the mission of promoting and developing activities and projects for the community, especially in the health care and socio-cultural sectors.

The MAST Foundation is located next to the Coesia headquarters in a multifunctional complex covering an area of 25,000 square metres designed for company's employees, but also open to the public as an ongoing experiment integrating business and community. Corporate welfare services combine with a programme of cultural activities offered free of charge to the public of all ages within the MAST spaces.  The MAST Foundation aspires to be an open place where citizen can enjoy access to learning, arts, and photography of the working world, a cultural destination that stimulates and engages, combining, personal growth and the well-being.

The show extends over three levels of Fondazione MAST: Gallery, Foyer and Level 0. The Gallery houses some of the Early Works with photos taken in areas riven by conflict – the Middle East, the Balkans, the US-Mexico border - and Infra, the series that brought the artist to prominence. It consists of images taken during the brutal wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo using Kodak Aerochrome (infrared film now discontinued by Kodak but used in the past as a military reconnaissance technology).

In the Foyer is the Heat Maps series (and some related works) and the more recent Ultra and Tristes Tropiques series. Heat Maps presents images taken with a military-grade thermal imaging camera (capable of detecting temperature differences up to thirty kilometres away) along the migratory routes from the Middle East and Africa towards Europe. The photos in the Ultra series use a UV fluorescence technique to offer an unusual perspective on the beauty of nature in the Amazon rainforest. Tristes Tropiques shows the dramatic impact of deforestation in Brazil by means of images generated with sophisticated satellite photography technology (based on drones and multispectral imaging).

Level 0 houses the video installation The Enclave (shot with Aerochrome infrared film) and the video Incoming (filmed with a military thermal imaging camera), both the fruit of collaboration between the artist, DOP Trevor Tweeten and the composer Ben Frost.

Richard Mosse: Displaced - Migration conflict. Climate change

until September 19, 2021

MAST Foundation
via Speranza 42
I-40133 Bologna