PLAYGROUNDS, LINDA FREGNI NAGLER

Palazzo Boncompagni, Bologna, 2023

With GAME, the 2023 biennale of Foto/Industria is dedicated to the theme of the ‘game’.
Photography that documents industry and work, the basis of each edition of Foto/Industria, this year explores the production of objects and devices that fall within a vast and solid sector that has been able to reinvent itself over time to meet changes in taste and habits, and is always extremely receptive to technological innovation.

Playgrounds consists of a series of images of playgrounds shot by night. The playgrounds in these images lack two crucial features: colour and their very young users swarming all around them. By losing their function, these places turn into something else, out-of-scale architecture, uninhabited neighborhoods, even changing in tone and mood. The cheerfulness and lightness normally associated with these particular installations for play is no longer there. It is replaced by a general sense of suspension and restlessness. That which has always appeared to be bright and clear now shows its darker side: Playgrounds highlights the power of photography, whose uniqueness lies in its ability to transform its subjects rather than reproduce them.