Since 6 July 2023 until 7 January 2024, after ten years since the last edition, FAI is hosting an exhibition of unpublished photographs that reveal the deep connection between the great photographer Gianni Berengo Gardin and the Borgo di San Fruttuoso.

The Gianni Berengo Gardin – San Fruttuoso di Camogli exhibition, set up in two rooms of the Abbey, presents twenty-eight black and white photographs taken by the famous photographer in 2020, at the age of 90 (link in Italian). The photos express – thanks to the play of contrasts typical of the author – all the meticulousness, passion, attention to detail and people that have always animated his work.
After having dedicated a photographic project to Camogli in 2008, of which he is an honorary citizen, Gianni Berengo Gardin signed a new reportage on the Ligurian coast, taken during the period of the pandemic: the emergency and the extraordinariness of those months made it possible to obtain particularly evocative images, which show San Fruttuoso as a place of meditation in a situation of complete isolation.

Curator of the exhibition is Guido Risicato, a long-standing friend of the artist and his companion during ‘expeditions’ to the Borgo. Risicato sorted and selected the shots to be exhibited with the help of the photographer’s daughter Susanna Berengo Gardin, identifying the main themes that guided the reportage. The first room, the Sala della Quadrifora, tells the story of the journey to the destination, the natural landscape, the monumental architecture of the Abbey and the Doria Tower; the village, the presence of the historic mill, and the people who still live in San Fruttuoso today, on the other hand, occupy the rooms on the lower floor, which also house five large, printed photos, an absolute exception, granted by Berengo Gardin only on the occasion of the exhibition, to allow visitors to better perceive the power of the images.

In addition to Gianni Berengo Gardin’s will, the project is the brainchild of Fabio Masi, publisher and owner of the Ultima Spiaggia bookshop in Camogli. Accompanying the exhibition is the volume Gianni Berengo Gardin. Il borgo di San Fruttuoso di Camogli, edited by Guido Risicato, with a preface by Federico Rampini and a text by Silvio Ferrari, published by Libreria Ultima Spiaggia, which will be presented to the public shortly at the Teatro Sociale in Camogli.