Exhibition │ A MIA MADRE by Yvonne De Rosa at Europe House
Saturday 6 June at 12:30
This exhibition became part of the 2026 program through a collaboration between Grenze Arsenali Fotografici and the Sarajevo Photography Festival. This partnership is based on an exchange of exhibitions between the two festivals, enabling intercultural dialogue and creating opportunities for photographers’ work to reach wider and more diverse audiences. Curator of the exhibition is Simone Azzoni, Art Director/Curator at Grenze Arsenali Fotografici.
Through rare historical photographs and diaries, Italian photographer Yvonne De Rosa’s exhibition unfolds as a powerful meditation on what it means to be a young soldier: to leave behind those closest to you, confront fear, lose the innocence of childhood, and suddenly, inevitably, become an adult.
With this work, De Rosa invites us to reflect on war, and on the painful truth that it is so often fought by the young — by those who rarely understand what awaits them.
“I want to share an analysis of the question marks surrounding war and the fact that it is mainly fought by young people who often do not have a clear understanding of what they will be supporting. Through my work, I seek an emotional connection with the observer without providing a direct representation of reality. By subverting the timeline and eliminating the brutality of the present, I create a suspended time and invite reflection on this theme.”
Yvonne De Rosa
The images which Yvonne De Rosa has collected are interconnected, objective and the vernacular photographs are like punctuation to paragraphs that recount yet another story. A MIA MADRE is an archive in which Yvonne De Rosa both reaffirms the values of truth and remembrance and insinuates a fictional narrative. The archive is the result of sampling and reconstruction; it is a mosaic that does not recount a linear story but rather confounds text and material. A MIA MADRE does not preserve a cohesive and compact story, but slivers and fragments of one with a high metonymic potential.
If a fragment is the smallest possible unit, its assembly with others is the practice through which its artistry is fulfilled. With her work, Yvonne De Rosa builds an atlas whose criteria for chronology are deliberately weak, yet which possess a powerful iconography. It is a meta-collection of what it might have meant to be a young soldier.
Simone Azzoni
About the Author: Yvonne De Rosa
Yvonne De Rosa was born in Naples. After earning a degree in Political Science from the Federico II University, she devoted herself to the study of photography, obtaining a Post Graduate Degree in Photography from Central Saint Martins and a Master’s Degree in Photojournalism from the London College of Communication.
In 2015, she founded the association Magazzini Fotografici in Naples, where she is still the curator, while continuing her personal artistic research. De Rosa’s research is now focused on the representation of memory and truth and on the documentary and narrative aspects of photography. The artist often proceeds by doing research, aimed at reconstructing the story of unknown people met by chance. To do this he retrieves objects in the markets, speaks with possible witnesses still alive, takes photographs in the key places of the narration. After patiently collecting all the clues and traces, De Rosa builds photographic shots of what happened.
Publications: Crazy God (Damiani Editore, 2008), Hidden Identities, Unfinished (Damiani Editore, 2013), Sguardo Sensibile (Filo di Partenope Editore, 2023), A Mia Madre (Roberto Nicolucci Editore, 2023).
She has had solo exhibitions in Italy and abroad, including: International Festival of Contemporary Arts in Ljubljana, Palazzo Delle Arti in Naples, Prometeo Gallery Ida Pisani in Milan, Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood, Ragusa Photography Festival, Fotografia Europea, AA29 Reggio Emilia, MRO Foundation, Rencontre d’Arles Photofestival, Hasht Cheshmeh Art Space in Kashan, Iran, Grenze Arsenali Fotografici – Spazio Arte Pisanello in Verona, National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Palazzo Grillo in Genoa.