Provinces and suburbs, margins and marginality, adolescence and uncertainty as conditions for imagining the future—these are some of the key themes defining Italian artist Tomaso Clavarino’s latest visual research. Developed between 2020 and 2024, the various works presented in this exhibition are set within the vast and somewhat elusive territories of the Po Valley and Northern Italy. This region, the most developed in the country, is nonetheless rife with contradictions, especially in its more peripheral areas. Emotional Geographies unfolds across four distinct projects, which, despite their individuality, weave together a dialogue sharing a common vibration in photographic language, and a resonance of themes and atmospheres.

Clavarino’s four series—Ballad of Woods and Wounds (2020), Padanistan (2016–2022), Like Ivy We Grow Where There’s Place For Us (2021), and Soft Like Grass, Rough Like Asphalt (2023–24)—are exhibited together for the first time at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Toronto. Three of these have been published in photobook form, by Guest Editions, Studiofaganel, and the Municipality of Milan, respectively. Collectively, they capture an Italy in suspension, caught between past, present, and an uncertain future.

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Presented by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto and the Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea MUFOCO, in partnership with Trinity College in the University of Toronto, under the Patronage of the Embassy of Italy in Ottawa. Supported by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

Curated by Matteo Balduzzi

• Tomaso Clavarino is a photographer, director and lecturer based in Italy. His work was featured at Athens Photo Festival, Fotografia Europea, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Photo Kathmandu, Encontros da Imagem, Cortona On The Move, Format19, Photo Open Up, and museums: Triennale Milano, MUFOCO, Lumen Museum, Museo Blanes (Montevideo). He has been awarded prizes including: Premio Fabbri per la Fotografia Contemporanea, Cortona On The Move New Visions, Pulitzer Center Grant, Refocus by Italian Ministry of Culture, Panorami Contemporanei by MUFOCO. He is co-curator of JEST independent space for photography in Torino, and Professor at IED, and Fproject School of Cinematography in Bari, Italy. He is the author of four books: Soffice Come L'erba Ruvido Come L'asfalto, Comune di Milano (Italy); Padanistan, Guest Editions (UK) & studiofaganel (Italy); Ballad of Woods and Wounds, studiofaganel (Italy); Confiteor, Zine Tonic Editions.  www.tomasoclavarino.com

• Matteo Balduzzi is an architect by training and works in the fields of photography and public art, focusing on the relationship between people, the environment, and memory. For over fifteen years, he has collaborated with the Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea in Milano-Cinisello Balsamo, Italy, where he has served as the artistic program coordinator since 2018. He has curated numerous projects, including the exhibitions Gabriele Basilico, Viaggio in Italia, and Veggenti, recently presented in Milan, Rome, Paris, London, and Prague. A lecturer in the Master’s program in Photography and Visual Design at NABA in Milan and at IED in Turin, he is also a founding member of the contemporary art organization Careof in Milan.