Participants: Women who have experienced abuse
Location: Ginosa, Italy
Dates: Starting from September 7
'Love Yourself' photography workshop, curated by Loredana Denicola, is set to begin on September 7th in Ginosa.
This unique workshop is exclusively dedicated to women who have received support from the "Sud Est Donne" anti-violence center, which can be found at https://www.sudestdonne.it/.
In Italy, a staggering six million women have experienced various forms of physical or sexual violence. Shockingly, only 11% of these women report these incidents, leaving the majority to suffer in silence and fear alongside their children. These are women who often continue to endure violence, often from their own partners, and who struggle to assert their right to a life free from male violence.
The genesis of "Love Yourself" dates back to roughly 2016 when it began as a photographic and video project focused around women and men who had experienced abusive relationships, physical and psychological violence.
The project was conceptualised by photographer Loredana Denicola upon her return to Italy after residing in London for eleven years. Denicola's artistic exploration focuses on intimacy, its transformative potential, and the strength that can emerge from fragility once understood.
Photography, within this context, becomes an opportunity and a choice to narrate one's own story, to expose the past, and to depict the imagined and desired present. It entails "looking through the viewfinder" to peer into oneself, to make choices, to be..., to say, and to tell one's story in a renewed and distinctive manner.
Photographs grant the power to be both the author and the subject, an opportunity to view one's personal reality from the perspective of an inner witness. It's a journey towards no longer being victims, no longer enslaved by past events.
Since 2013, Loredana Denicola has been working in London on a variety of photographic projects involving individuals eager to shed light on issues such as sexuality, gender equality, prejudice, love, physical and psychological abuse, negative thinking, and illness.
The "South East Women" center in Martina Franca is the pioneering anti-violence center to have embraced this project and promote it to its female beneficiaries.