“The Southeast Passage,” an underwater photographic exhibit by Salvo Galano in Ponza

Ponza Municipality and the Mayor Piero Vigorelli, in the occasion of the Ponza Estate festival  present “The Southeast Passage,” the first underwater photographic exhibit by Salvo Galano,
created and realized by  South East Cultural Association
June 18th – September 14th, 2014

 “The Southeast Passage” inaugurates, for the first time in the history of the photographic exhibitions, a new exposition format, dedicated to the sea and its lovers.
The exhibition is physically installed under the water level to a depth of 3 -4 meters and it is a circular exposition path of 28 photos, parallel to the water surface and the sea bottom. A floating buoy signals the submarine visual path at few meters from the shore.

Left down in that infinite liquid mass, at the southeast side of the Isle of Ponza, it narrates a story of another Southeast, the Asiatic one, thousands miles far away, but wetted by the same element: the sea. In this way, the exhibition became visible for swimmers, snorkelers and sailors.
Salvo Galano is a photographer and portraitist of Ponza, great lover of the sea and its depths. In his international artistic life, Galano has signed a series of thematic projects, some of those published in books and subject of exhibitions. Among the others, one of the most famous is “The Isle”, which has as protagonists men and women of Ponza, with whom Salvo lives a long part of the year.  Then he decides to leave, he chooses a destination and come back with new imagines and many new stories. For this reason the Ponza Mayor invited him to think about a personal project able to give value to a different space from the usual space in a museum, an imaginary “open air exposition” in order to show the natural beauties of Ponza.
The determination of Galano to solve every technical problem of installation of the exhibition, matched the enthusiasm of mayor Piero Vigorelli, of the Ponza administration and, most of all, of a group of friends such as the architect Vincenzo Lauri and the director Veronica Mengoli, with whom Galano has founded the cultural association “South East”, to make possible this project.

Months of experimentation, research of the right materials, technical draws, studies of the marine currents, solutions and secure positioning of the works, have made possible the installation of the first snorkeling photographic exhibition under the sea water level.
An interactive exhibition between the works of Galano, printed in a big format, and the water, that with the movements of its currents, of the sands, and most of all of the inclinations of the sun beams during the different moments of the day, modifies the visual effect of the exposition path. The incredibly clear water of the bay of Frontone will made the photos visible by people who wear a mask or that sail on a boat or on a canoe.

Salvo Galano and the history of a project

Who was born or has its roots on a island, both big or little, knows that the sea and the water are ancestral elements that influence his life. I always left from Ponza. I lived in Milan, London, New York, I worked for transnational corporation and important magazines, always keeping on travelling. The motivation that moved me all around the world has always been the same as the very powerful one that forced me to get back to Ponza.
It is its beauty, in my opinion with no equal in the world, that challenges me when I leave and then I come back to the island. I am a photographer, a portraitist and a nomad. For me, the portrait is a research, the match between different souls. Every shoot tells to my camera something I got a lesson from.
I wanted to give Ponza the astonishment I research in other places, the same humanity and fatigue I find in people from far away countries. I wanted to bring to Ponza new colours, other cultures and animals. I wanted it was a unique exhibition dedicated to Ponza and thought for Ponza.
Ponza is the sea, a clear one that dominates over everything else. And the exhibition became sea. I am glad that Passaggio a Sudest (Southeast Passage) is placed in this wonderful and incredible exhibition location: Ponza.

Salvo Galano