Alessia Rollo

Ambaradam

Ambaradam is a word Italian people use to define a messy situation or a confusing group of elements. A few months ago, I discovered that Ambaradam is the name of an Ethiopian mountain, the location of one of the bigger battles between Italy and Ethiopia in 1935. After this event, the United Nations imposed an embargo on Italy. There was no iron for the buildings, so we ended up with neo-classic architecture, using big stones for the buildings. And finally, a part of my family spent 10 years in Gimma, close to Addis Ababa in 1950, I could not understand why they had lived there. I only managed to get a few pictures and confused memories by my grandmother.

Starting from these accidental discovers and coincidences, I decided to start a project that questions the idea of a document itself: documents are the result of the effort made by a historical society to impose, either voluntary or involuntary, a certain image of themselves into the future. There is no truthful document. Every document is arbitrary. Every document is a lie. So I’ve decide to build up my own history about Italy, Ethiopia and the relationship between them.

Alessia Rollo

Alessia Rollo was born in South Italy in 1982. She received her BA at The University in Perugia and she is crossing her MA in Publishing at University Statale in Milan. She also obtained a Master in “Creative Photography” in 2009 at EFTI school in Madrid and participated on many workshops with international artists such as Peter Funch, Mauricio Alejo, Danis Darzacq, Jill Greenberg, Matt Siber, James Casebere and Mary Hellen Mark. She participated in solo and group exhibitions in Spain, Italy and Brazil. Her work has been displayed in Photolondon, Mia Photo Fair Milano, Urban Layers Triennale di Milano; Set up Bologna, Galleria Bluorg Bari; Bitume Photofest Malaga, Salonicco and Lecce: Milano, Biennale of Young Mediterranean artists; Galleria ARTcore Gallery Bari: Museum of history of Lecce; “Si fest off” Savignano: Galeria Mascate, Brasil; Galeria Cero Madrid; “Shangai Photofestival”, Shangai. She was selected for the international art residency Default – Masterclass in residence in 2011, for a residency at the MO.ta in Ljubljana in 2013, for the Biennale of Young Artists of the Mediterranean in 2015 and for “Bitume Photofest” in 2016 (Malaga, Thessaloniki, Lecce). Her project Fata Morgana has been selected in the finalist group for LensCulture Exposure Award 2018 and exhibited during Photo London 2018: she was selected by PHotoEspaña as emergent talent 2018 for Futures Photography. Her project “Dialoghi italiani” is one of the finalist works at Cormos Book Award 2018 at Arles. She was awarded by Fotocanal 2018 for her project “Fata Morgana” that will be published by Ediciones Anomalas in March 2018.