20 / 20 / 200 is a special anniversary portfolio produced by Micamera for its 20th anniversary Read here
CAMILLA DE MAFFEI (Cles, Trento, 1981)
Untitled, 2020 (from The Great Father, 2018 – 2023)
The Great Father is a long term project that, focusing on the Albanian case, deepens into the relationship between individuals and power worldwide. The research process started in 2018 offers an immersion into today’s Albania to explore the implications and consequences of the rise and fall of Enver Hoxha’s regime.
The narrative corpus aims to highlight the scars that this transition process has left on society, meticulously analysing its architecture and places, identifying gestures and symbols, digging through the rubble of the past and comparing it with that populate the present.
The project consists of photographs taken by Camilla de Maffei and over 80 interviews conducted by Christian Elia. Together, they have travelled through entire Albania to observe as many places as possible.
Camilla De Maffei‘s photographic practice combines a documentary approach with personal narratives, which do not aim at illustrating and describing literally, but rather at interpreting by attributing new meanings to everyday elements.
Since 2009 she is committed mostly to the Balkans, with a special focus on Bosnia Herzegovina, Romania and Albania. In several of her long-term projects her aim has been to observe these territories from an emotional, cultural and geopolitical point of view and to explore and relate the concepts of identity, memory and landscape.
She co-founded El Observatorio, a space based in Barcelona and devoted to photography, where she also teaches.
In 2021 her work on the Danube Delta received the Mallorca de Fotografía Contemporànea award, was published by Ediciones Anomalas in 2022, and is touring several institutional exhibition venues in Europe. In 2023 Grande Padre won the BUP Book Award and is scheduled for publication in 2024.
