Stone gorges, pinnacles, overhangs and rock faces in the Alps: for several years they represented a shelter and an emplacement for our soldiers during the First World War, and now are the protagonists of the exhibition ‘War theatres – photographs by Luca Campigotto’.
From the Dolomites to the Carso, from the Adamello to the Pasubio, tracing back with images the achievements made one century ago by the Italian army, entrenched on the mountains to defend and garrison – too often uselessly – emplacements and borders.
A journey back in time and to sites, along communication trenches, mule tracks and tunnels, entering bunkers and caves, against impassable and almost inaccessible backgrounds.
The bare although tragically imposing landscape represents an indelible document of the bloody period between 1915 and 1918 that still nowadays, in its bareness represented by what remains of battles – barbed wires, crosses, fragments of trenches and sheds – shows the inconveniences, the sufferings and the tragedies at the front.
These are lean, intense and almost movie-like images, against the silent solemnity of their desolating background, and with physical evidence that looks like scars.
This confirms that the Great War is not forgotten, it shall not be forgotten; rather it can and must continue to be part of our history and identity. The duty of a mindful Country is to collect traces and memories, to take care of them, and then to perform their analysis and dissemination.
This is the true objective of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, which is working on the ambitious project of gathering any piece of information on this subject and to give it new life through restorations, exhibitions, a careful research on topographies, the publication of researches and documents, in-depth analyses and cultural activities including history and historiography, arts, photography, cinematography, as well as any possible form of expression and recovery. The main goal is to establish, at the end of the four years of commemorations, an ideal “Memorial of the Great War” acting as a virtual container of tangible documents and real places, where all the materials analysed and the discoveries made might remain at the disposal of future generations.
Luca Campigotto, born in Venice on 23rd February 1962, is an internationally renowned photographer living and working between Milan and New York.
Graduated in modern history with a thesis on the great geographical discoveries, since the 1990s he linked his researches to the subject of journeys, by developing both colour and black and white projects on cities and imposing landscape scenarios.
His main works are devoted to Venice, Cairo, to the mountainous landscapes of the Great War, New York and Chicago.
He exhibited at Mois de la Photo and MEP, Paris; Somerset House, London; Galleria Gottardo, Lugano; IVAM, Valencia; The Art Museum, Miami; The Warehouse, Miami; CCA, Montreal; Biennale di Venezia and Museo Fortuny, Venice; MAXXI, Rome; Festival della Fotografia, Rome; MART, Rovereto.
 
On the website of  Il Mattino di Padova, an interview to Luca Campigotto