ABOUT

Ritratto Gianni CusumanoI live and work in Castelbuono, in the Madonie mountains of Sicily, where my photographic laboratory is based.

I am a photographic artist, researcher and educator specializing in historical photographic processes, with a particular focus on wet collodion, dry collodion, and 19th-century printing techniques such as salt printing and albumen printing. I do not consider these processes as a form of historical re-enactment, but as a contemporary photographic language, grounded in materiality, time and physical experience.

My artistic research explores themes related to memory, the relationship between human beings and nature, and portraiture. In my work, the encounter between my gaze and that of the sitter generates fragile and unrepeatable images, embodied in unique photographic plates that resist digital dematerialization. Photography becomes an act of tangible memory: an object capable of holding time, presence and transformation.

Alongside my authorial practice, I pursue continuous technical research and experimentation on collodion-based processes and historical printing methods. The craftsmanship and precision required by these techniques transform each image into a living material, in which light becomes substance and the process itself is an integral part of the work’s meaning.

In 2019 I collaborated with the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York. This experience evolved into an ongoing collaboration with Mark Osterman and France Scully Osterman, internationally recognized authorities on collodion photography. Together we lead international workshops, welcoming photographers and artists from around the world. Teaching is a core component of my practice — a space for transmission, dialogue and the preservation of the material memory of photography.

My work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions and has entered private and institutional collections dedicated to photography.

 

 

COLLABORATION

May 2019

Dry collodion negative Workshop at my laboratory organized in partnership with Eastman Museum of New York

Farm Cultural Park

October 2018

Workshop at Cultural Farm Park Favara

April 2020

Basic collodion Workshop at Rovigo organized in partnership with Branco Ottico

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