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Italian museum documents Bolivian mountains

02.03.2015

The second research mission of the Museo Nazionale della Montagna (the National Mountain Museum) to Bolivia is underway. This time its journey is focused on the centre west area, in particular the areas of Oruro and La Paz, through to the most remote mountain areas. In recent weeks, various carnival festivities have taken place, both in cities and in villages. These feasts were characterized by strong music, which is a large part of this Andean country’s daily life.

The museum has conducted research to this one, reaching the mountains of the world. This time the result will be the exhibition, “Bolivia - Its Musical Places”, which will be held in Monte dei Cappuccini in Turin, Italy, starting next November. A reportage by the Canadian photographer Craig Richards documents the close relationship between the landscape, the people, the festivities and the music, a recurring element in the rural world that also permeates urban areas.

The first mission, of a longer duration, was to most of the Bolivian regions. In the months of July and August the main winter festivities were documented; now, the summer months of February and March were documented with images. The entire set will be presented in the art show and in the catalogue that will be presented initially in Turin, then travel throughout Italy and abroad. Not only will the photographic prints become part of the museum’s patrimony, they will be kept in the photo library of the Documentation Centre: a unique patrimony in continuous expansion. “Bolivia - Its Musical Places” is a project that sees the collaboration of the Museo Nazionale della Montagna, the Piedmont Region, with support from the City of Turin, the Club Alpino Italiano and of the Compagnia di San Paolo as well as the Bolivian Embassy to Italy.

The current mission is reaching remote destinations starting with the most famous places in the country, to attend moving festivities. These situations will be relived in Craig Richards’s extraordinary black and white artistic photographs, one of the most famous mountain photographers in the world, whose large format prints testify to daily life in the mountains. Fausto Ramos is also taking part in the mission. The overall project is coordinated by Aldo Audisio, director of the museum, in cooperation with Luis Sánchez-Gómez, Counselor of the Bolivian Embassy.

Ranging from different themes linked to mountains, from the Alps to the rest of the continents, once again the Museo Nazionale della Montagna is demonstrating its vitality through its unique work of valorizations and knowledge. “The activities of a museum,” says Audisio, “can’t stop at just conservation. A museum has to be the centre of culture; activity, a place of promotion of research and comparison and mostly, has to cover all the institutional themes addressing new audiences”. A challenging task that has been undertaken for decades in Turin, at the Museo Nazionale della Montagna.

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