Underwater Venice

Seas, landscapes and amazing towns like Venice fill the hearts of millions of romantic people, but the danger of climate change is affecting our ability to dream in the future. Billions of photographs have been shot of the historically enchanted town and very easily all those pictures will form the memory of a place that will soon be underwater. One of the tasks, probably the mission, of photography is to freeze the time and space of a small fragment in the movement of the universe. Future generations which Venice will see? Photographs taken by many eyes, souls, and different capabilities will form the only available reality of Venice in their minds and hearts?

"Photography is not pure duplication or a stopwatch of the eye that stops the physical world, but it is a language in which the difference between reproduction and interpretation, however subtle, exists and gives rise to an in nite number of imaginary worlds. So the great master Luigi Ghirri wrote and so Ian seems to move with his Underwater Venice project. Get originality photographing Venice is dif cult, falling into the banal déjà vu is easy, but Ian decomposes, overlaps, doubles, triples views, palaces, canals, basilicas and bell towers that propose a real Venice, but oneiric. He is leading conscious research to imagine a possible future of memory for a city, unique in the world, but probably fated to go underwater".

Paola de Riva, curator of the Underwater Venice series

Note:

The concept of Underwater Venice is of a diver swimming in a Venice that is already fully under water. You can see distortion and black shadow of the scuba mask.

Asymetric and unregular white board framing is part of the composition.

The Series consists of different subjects with horizontal or vertical development and different size. Here you can find a selection.

The Series consists of different subjects with horizontal or vertical development and different size. The 18 pieces of the Underwater Venice series has been exhibited in Japan in 4 cities/locations for 7 months in a row, supported and organised by the Italian Institute of Culture of Osaka, a relevant official Italian government cultural entity in Japan. My best selling series to date.

Catalogue has been printed in Italian, English, Japanese and Korean.