REPORTAGE: MIA Fair by Cristina Morozzi

This year, Milan’s annual international photography art fair was held at a new venue, Superstudio Maxi.

Following a hiatus in 2020, annual photography exhibition MIA Fair made a comeback this year at a new location, Superstudio Maxi.

The 7,000-square metre venue, created by promoter of art, fashion, design and photography events Gisella Borioli, is located at Via Moncucco 35, just a short distance from green line underground stop Famagosta.

Fabio Castelli, who created and runs the event with his daughter, Lorenza, describes the venue as spectacular. The former industrial area is located in a part of the city that is being relaunched as a cultural hub, in part thanks to its proximity to IULM University and the Polytechnic School of Design.

This year the fair hosted 90 exhibitions from 14 countries. The event included spaces of varying sizes for galleries and another 40 areas dedicated to the publishing sector, special projects, design and contemporary art. The cultural section, which offered a host of meetings and debates focused on the theme of the relationship between art and science, also included a tribute exhibition to portrait painter Giovanni Gastel, who recently passed away.

Among the exhibitions at the event was a survey of design and photography, Parallel 2021 Design & Photography, curated by MoscaPartners. Organisers of the event said that it placed the “spotlight onto the work of a selection of international contemporary designers and limited editions, art-design and independently produced pieces as well as innovative research projects that focus on environmental sustainability and craftsmen that produce small series of the highest quality”. Images on display included Carlo Lavatori’s photograph of Alessandro Mendini’s Monumentino and Santi Caleca’s photograph of the Mallet-Stevens Tree.

Cristina Morozzi

Artist and photographer Malena Mazza has presented her new book “Woman on women” at the event. You can find it in her collection on Design Italy.