THE FLEGREI: A STATE OF MINDFederico Righi

With the phrase “i Flegrei” it would seem to trivially identify a people or inhabitants of the Phlegraean area; the residents of the municipalities of that area, but it is not quite so, at least for me. I believe that defining the Phlegraean people is really an understatement.

The Phlegraeans are a mental state, not characteristic of a specific area, but specific to anyone who has to do with those places steeped in history and culture, characterized by dense colors like magma and simple like the blue of the sky that merges with that of the sea. A thousand-year history that you breathe as soon as you think about it, a taste that you can taste in your mouth even when you’ve been gone for months.

The travelers, all for one reason or another, who head towards the Phlegraean area, as soon as they are in the Montesanto station, already savor their journey through that tunnel of time, which represents the gateway to the Phlegraean area, which it will catapult you into a reality that, unlike others, is still full of the presence of a mythological past and that sees intact its beliefs, uses, customs, simplicity and genuineness.

The Phlegraeans, therefore, have attracted my particular attention, they are those “travelers” who carry and feel within the spirit and the thought of the young Goethe who, in his journey in the Phlegrean fields, of 1787, wrote: “Under the purest sky the most insecure soil. Leftovers of unthinkable sad and sad splendor. Boiling waters, sulfur-colored crevasses, slag mountains opposed to vegetation, deserted, repulsive spaces; and then, finally, an ever more flourishing vegetation, which is affirmed wherever it can, which rises above all death ruins and around lakes and streams, affirming itself even with the most superb oak forest on the walls of an ancient crater ”.

So, for some years now, I have been taking photographs of the Phlegraeans, men and women, who pass, stop and populate the Cumana stations and trains, searching, stopping, in their faces, the Phlegraean spirit.

 

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Federico Righi was born in Casoria, a large village / dormitory near Naples, he attended his “country” feeling too narrow, until, at the age of 12, he discovered the bus that took him to Naples.

Fascinated by his aunt’s travel images, he fell in love with photography from childhood.

His first photograph is taken with a Kodak Instamatic at the age of 6.

At thirteen he developed and printed his photos.

Very young, he attended the Institute for Philosophical Studies, forging his soul and his thinking and laying the foundations for a sensitivity.
His interests are in the artistic and cultural environments of Naples, which he frequently visits.

The commitments to scholastics, distance him, temporarily, from photography, but after graduating in civil engineering, the passion for photography is rekindled, he begins to deepen his knowledge and also attends courses in photography but one in particular, held by Augusto De Luca, allowed him to bring out the compositional elements, which had them, dormant, of photography. He began to see with his photographic eye precisely thanks to the teaching of De Luca, who considers his teacher.

Later, after completing his degree in Architecture, he mastered form and function better and developed a concrete compositional eye. He always strives to the maximum, expressing his artistic ability, through photography. In recent years, however, his research and desire to photograph has intensified, to which he has associated travel reportages of faraway places and the study of the shots of great photographers. With the photos he also created several works and installations.

Today the photograph he prefers is street-photography, and it is the one on which he is very concentrated lately; although it carries out wide-ranging photographic projects.

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EXHIBITIONS

 

2011

• Exhibition at the Magma Museum in Roccamonfina;
• Exhibition Museo Nacional de escultura of Spain

 

2012

• Winner of the first prize in the photo competition for the America’s Cup in Naples;
• Finalist photo contest “frames” of the Naples Festival;
• Publication and quotations in the Spanish magazine Mambo Magazine
• Exhibition on the theme of violence against women in the cloister of San Salvatore in Horta Atella (CE), with a central work;
• Created the character Summa Violentia, against violence against women.

 

2013

• Finalist photo contest “frames” of the Naples Festival
• Exhibition in the cloister of the Faculty of Engineering of Aversa “100 red shoes against violence”, with the main work, Summa Violentia.
  2014
• Exhibition at Kouros Aversa
• Photo exhibition “Adda Passa a ‘nuttata”
• L’Oeil de la Fotographie – the 2014 Holyday photos
• Exihibition in Morcone (BN)

 

2015

• Selected for the 2015 HCB Award

 

2016

• Group exhibition 20×20 Modena

 

2017

• Work acquired at the permanent collection of (MACS) Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Maria di S. M. Capua Vetere
• Selected for the HCB Award 2017 Award
• Opera Summa Violentia present at the Belvedere Biennale of San Leucio
• Winner of the FIAF Award Author of the Campania Region for 2017
• Operates Mithra Sol Invictus – Taurus – at the MACS Museum – 21/12

 

2018

• Opera “in pizza we trust” present at Spazio Vitale in Aversa
• MAVI FINALIST IN “1801 PASSAGE” and a photographic work that became part of the permanent collection of the visual anthropological museum of Lacedonia

 

2019

• Personal exhibition in the photo exhibition Art in Garage of the photos I flegrei: a state of mind.
• Pentalogy Collective Exhibition in Frederick’s museums – University of Naples Federico II, May of monuments.
• Collective Exhibition Anima Campana – FIAF – Refettorio di San Domenico maggiore.
• Collective NaplesTen Exhibition – Municipality of Naples
• Collective Exhibition at MANN – National Archaeological Museum of Naples – The colors of inclusion.
• MAVI FINALIST IN “1801 PASSAGE” AND A PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK THAT BECAME PART OF THE PERMANENT COLLECTION OF THE VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF LACEDONIA