Ila Bêka - Fotoni

Description

On display for the first time is a selection of over 300 photographs drawn from the artist’s personal and previously unpublished archive, comprising some 300,000 images collected over forty years of artistic research and practice.
The title FOTONI refers to Ila Bêka’s passion for quantum mechanics and to the particles of light at the heart of Albert Einstein’s research. Over a century ago, the physicist put forward the hypothesis that the energy of a light beam was not distributed continuously throughout space, but was composed of localised, moving ‘quanta’, later termed photons. Once reflected by matter, these are perceived and interpreted by our brain. Hence the title of the exhibition, which the artist summarises as follows: ‘To see is to translate photons into experience’.
As Carlo Rovelli explains, quantum physics invites us to view the world as a network of relationships, in which objects do not possess absolute properties but acquire them through interactions. Everything around us emits, reflects or transmits light. When light enters our eyes, the retina transforms it into nerve signals, and the brain interprets these as shapes and colours.
The word ‘photons’ also suggests a subtle touch of the artist’s self-deprecating humour regarding the large-format scale that some of the photographs take on in the exhibition, compared to the pocket-sized dimensions of the collection of images he has taken, mostly with his mobile phone. For Ila Bêka, in fact, the mobile phone serves as a sketchbook and notebook – a tool often used by artists to develop and refine their own ‘grammar of seeing’, even before they begin to depict.
As he wanders through the streets, the artist captures moments of waiting and small events, and his gaze delves into everyday life, remaining alert and curious, without imposing on himself the obligation of formal perfection or completeness.

Organized by:

ERPAC FVG e Magazzino delle Idee
email: info@magazzinodelleidee.it
telefono +39 040 3774783