100 fotografie per ereditare il mondo

MUDEC – Museo delle Culture presents the exhibition 100 fotografie per ereditare il mondo (100 Photographs to inherit the World), curated by Denis Curti in collaboration with Alessio Fusi and Alessandro Curti. The exhibition offers a journey through two centuries of photographic history, bringing together one hundred images by great masters and contemporary authors to reflect on humanity’s visual memory and our relationship with the present.

The project is inspired by the idea of “inheriting the world,” inviting viewers to observe the time we live in, marked by technological transformations, environmental crises, conflicts, and an increasing visual saturation. In this context, photography becomes a tool for navigating the complexity of reality and building a shared collective memory.

The exhibition opens with a section dedicated to the birth of photography, from the early experiments of Nicéphore Niépce and Louis Daguerre to the portraits of Julia Margaret Cameron and the war photographs of Roger Fenton. This is followed by chapters exploring experimentation and image construction, with works by Man Ray, Aleksandr Rodchenko, André Kertész and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

The central sections investigate photography as a document and memory of history, with iconic images such as Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange, as well as a tool for exploring identity, through the self-portraits of Claude Cahun and the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe.

The exhibition concludes with a reflection on contemporary photography and the new imaginaries of the twenty-first century, addressing themes such as migration, the environment, identity, and multiculturalism. Through one hundred images, the show invites visitors to slow their gaze and recognize photography as a fundamental tool for understanding the past and imagining the future.