site: Various Offices (Siena).

Indian photographer Danish Siddiqui, killed in 2021 in Afghanistan during one of his reportages; Ami Vitale, National Geographic photographer; Dan Winters, icon of international photography and author of the most popular portraits of celebrities of the last 15 years; Peter Mather, member of the International League of Conservation Photographers. They are the absolute protagonists of the four solo exhibitions that will animate the 2022 edition of the Siena Awards, the photography and visual arts festival scheduled from 1 October to 20 November with a rich program of exhibitions and other events. Like every year, moreover, the festival will give space to its three photographic awards: “Creative Photo Awards”, dedicated to contemporary photography, “Drone Photo Awards”, which the winner takes extraordinary shots and videos immortalized from above, and extraordinary videos ” Siena International Photo Awards ”, which last year saw the triumph of the shot“ Hardship of life ”by the Turkish photographer Mehmet Aslan. The image, which went around the world and started a beautiful solidarity contest, made it possible to bring little Mustafa and his father Munzir to Italy, victims of the very serious consequences of the war in Syria, and to dare them a perspective of better life with the prosthetic interventions scheduled at the Vigorso di Budrio Prosthetic Center.

The Siena Awards will open on Saturday 1 October with the traditional awards ceremony in the company of great names in photography such as Steve Winter, Ami Vitale, Dan Winters, Kathy Moran, historical head of photography for the American magazine National Geographic, and some photo editors of the major world newspapers.

The personal exhibitions.
On July 16, 2021, the young Danish photographer Siddiqui – born in 1983 and winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 – was killed in Afghanistan while documenting the smiles between Afghan troops and the Taliban in the Spin Boldak district. Thanks to his colleague and friend Adrees Latif, the Siena Awards will host his last 2 reportages, “Last Stand Against Taleban”, with images taken by Danish Siddiqui shortly before his death, and “COVID, India’s Second Wave”, made in the spring of 2021 when India went through the second wave of Coronavirus infections. The shots by Danish Siddiqui will be exhibited in the Camollia 85 Green Area (Via del Romitorio, 4).

“Hope for extinction” is the title of the exhibition with the shots of Ami Vitale, Nikon ambassador and National Geographic photographer, which tell stories of people who protect what remains of nature. The exhibition will be set up in the Natural History Museum of Siena (Piazzetta Silvio Gigli, 2) and will turn the spotlight on the history of an elephant orphanage in Kenya, on a project documenting the dramatic rescue of two Rothschild giraffes and on the transport of four white rhinos from the Dvur Králové zoo in the Czech Republic to the Ol Pejeta nature reserve in Kenya.

The Accademia dei Rozzi (via di Città, 36) will host, instead, the exhibition “Urban Foxes and ice grizzlies”, personal exhibition by Peter Mather, member of the International League of Conservation Photographers represented by the National Geographic Image Collection, Ambassador of Panasonic and committed for many years in the conservation of natural habitats of endangered species in various parts of the world. In Siena it will be possible to see Peter Mather’s shots taken for two projects: “The Last Ice Bears” and “Urban and Wild”. The first features grizzlies fishing for salmon in the southwestern Yukon, north of Canada. Here, with the arrival of winter and temperatures far below freezing, the fur of grizzly bears becomes covered with icicle shadows as they enter and leave frozen coves to hunt for salmon. The same prey is coveted by the locals, with whom these “Ice Bears” have shared the territory for thousands of years despite the disappearance of the salmon, hunting and changes threaten their survival. The second project, “Urban and Wild”, is dedicated to red foxes, known for their cunning and capable of living on the edge of green spaces and urban settlements. Mather’s images come from Whitehorse, northern Canada, where this species has found an ideal community between the new urban world and its natural wild habitat.

Siena Awards still crosses the city limits. Sovicille, a few kilometers from Siena, returns to the fore with the Siena Awards after the positive experiences of recent years. With a circular route along the streets of the center and in the main square of Sovicille, it will be possible to admire the widespread exhibition “Face to face”, where 40 faces of people of all ages and from all over the world will look out from the buildings of the historic center and from buffered windows and doors. The exhibition will transform the country into a sort of open-air museum dedicated to the identity and complexity of humanity. From the main square of Sovicille it will be possible to access the “La Tinaia” Cultural Center to visit “Dan Winters: Celebrities”, a personal exhibition by the photographer known and awarded all over the world for his portraits of celebrities, for his photographs and illustrations and spaces and for his photojournalism works, publications in numerous American and international magazines. In Sovicille Winters he will exhibit some of his portraits dedicated to the most important Hollywood stars (Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Denzel Washington, Nicole Kidman, Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio), most famous rock stars (Bono, Eminem, Willie Nelson), actors, sportsmen and ordinary people.

The Siena Awards will be completed by the 3 exhibitions dedicated to its photographic awards. In the former Lo Stellino Distillery it will be possible to visit, as every year, “Imagine all the people sharing all the world”, which collects images and videos arriving from all over the world for the SIPA, Siena International Photo Awards, and winners such as “Photo of the Year ”and in the categories Documentary and photojournalism, The beauty of nature, Animals in their environment, Travel and adventures, Street Photography, Fascinating faces and characters, Architecture and urban spaces, Sports in action, Underwater Life, Storytelling. The exhibition also includes the “Sipa Story-Telling” exhibition, entirely dedicated to storytelling and reportage.

The “Accademia dei Fisiocritici” Museum of Natural History will again host “Above us only sky”, with the winning shots of the Drone Photo Awards, which represents the most important exhibition in the world dedicated to aerial photography, while the Medici Fortress will host the winning images of the “Creative Photo Awards”, with the exhibition “I wonder if you can” dedicated to contemporary photography.

Information
sienawards.com

Featured image
Dan-Winters – Angelina-Jolie-and-bees (part.)