International Conference curated by Maria Giovanna Mancini.
Scientific Committee:
Giovanni Attili, Giovanni Fiorentino, Antonello Frongia, Michael Jakob, Maria Giovanna Mancini,
Claudio Marra, Pino Musi, Federica Muzzarelli, Roberta Valtorta, Giuliano Volpe
Within the framework of the project Linea Sud: Photographic Landscape after 2000, supported
by Strategia Fotografia 2025, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture, the conference aims to investigate the photographic landscape of Southern Italy by reconstructing the trajectories and approaches developed by photographers active in the region since the early 2000s.

Over the past two decades, Southern Italian landscape photography has received limited scholarly attention, particularly when compared to the extensive research devoted to representations of environment and territory in Northern Italy, which have been the subject of systematic photographic campaigns and mapping initiatives supported by public projects and commissions. Despite sustained interest in twentieth-century ethnographic, archaeological, and environmental photographic campaigns, Southern Italy is today often represented within dominant visual culture through stereotypical narratives, in which landscape is alternately framed as an idyllic setting or as an aestheticized ruin. Such representations contribute to contemporary extractivist processes, including land consumption and overtourism.
In contrast, photographers such as Michele Cera, Raffaella Mariniello, Armando Perna, Chiara
Indelicato, Alessandro Imbriaco, Filippo Romano, Francesco Jodice, Armin Linke, Giovanna Silva, the collective Alterazioni Video, and Vincenzo Pagliuca, among others, have developed new modes of representing territory. Their practices articulate a complex image of Southern Italy, understood as a cultural and symbolic space connected to the theoretical framework of the Global South. This space is shaped by layered temporalities, forms of coexistence, modes of resistance of the wild, specific architectural typologies, autonomous social spaces, and informal modes of inhabiting and living.

Linea Sud: Photographic Landscape after 2000 seeks to address this historical and critical gap
through an interdisciplinary perspective informed by landscape studies, urban geography, art
history, and critical theory, as well as curatorial perspectives aimed at the critical valorization of
contemporary photographic practices. The generation of photographers active over the past decades, invited to engage in a collective discussion on photographic landscape by sharing their poetics and methodological approaches, contributes to challenging entrenched cultural stereotypes and established modes of representing Southern landscapes. Often adopting expanded forms and languages, these practices actively participate in the construction of new visual atlases and, in doing so, contribute to shaping public perception.

The conference will take place over two days. The first day will be dedicated to methodological
contributions by invited scholars, while the second day will feature papers selected through the Call for Papers, in dialogue with the keynote lecture by Michael Jakob and with the artistic research of Michele Cera, Raffaella Mariniello, Armando Perna, and Chiara Indelicato.
Consideration will be given to contributions grounded in participatory research practices and
practice-led approaches.

Suggested (but not exclusive) thematic areas include:
- Disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and generational approaches to the representation of territory.
- Archival practices and forms of archiving as modes of formal and critical inquiry.
- Photographic language and community participation.
- The deconstruction of visual clichés through photographic languages, techniques, and
methodologies.

Submission Guidelines
Applicants are invited to submit:
- An abstract of no more than 400 words, clearly outlining the proposed topic, methodology,
and sources.
- A short biographical note (maximum 200 words).

Submissions should be sent to info.lineasud.paesaggiogmail.com by 30January 2026.
Notification of acceptance will be communicated by 4 February 2026.
Each selected speaker will be allocated 20 minutes for their presentation.
Participation in the conference is free of charge. Travel and accommodation expenses are the
responsibility of participants.
A collected volume including contributions from all conference participants is planned. Final papers must be submitted by 20 May 2026.
For any inquiries, please contact: info.lineasud.paesaggiogmail.com.

The project is supported by Strategia Fotografia 2025, promoted by the Directorate-General for
Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
Partner
Polo Biblio-Museale Regione Puglia; CUSTA - Consulta Universitaria di Storia dell’Arte, SISF –
Società Italiana per lo Studio della Fotografia, LINEA – Lecce ; THE DOCKS – Napoli;
DISPACCIO – Napoli

Further information and the Italian version of the CFP please visit: https://www.uniba.it/it/ricerca/dipartimenti/dirium/ricerca/progetti-di-ricerca/linea-sud