Manilio Digital Photographic Archive

THE SLIDES

Manilio Prignano has left an impressive amount of photographic material: approximately 20,000 slides and 200 GB of image files.

Many of his photos represent nature as he saw it in the landscapes of the Central Apennines (Laga, Sibillini, Sirente, Gran Sasso ...), other areas of Italy (Cilento, Cinque Terre, Pollino, Mont Blanc, and so on) and the world (Pyrenees, Patagonia, Slovenia, Corsica). The range of what captured his artistic interest can be appreciated in the variety of photographic subjects, depicting not only moving water, ice, clouds and moons, but also rocks, flowers, lichens — a microcosm often no longer recognizable. To such wide display, we can add those shots that are more intentionally artistic, of which we can find a small selection on the website manilio.eu. Manilio refers to this part of his work as to "... images that arise from the relationship with matter and light, as in the most rigorous tradition of photography, but that, at the same time, betray, without regrets, the classic conception of the photographic medium as the ideal tool for communicating a vision / interpretation of external reality."

All this vast material is seriously at risk of becoming irreparably deteriorated, but we do believe that it is worthy of being preserved and shared with the public.

WHAT WE WISH TO ACHIEVE: THE "MANILIO DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE" PROJECT

There is a way to preserve and, at the same time, share such a wealth, currently closed inside boxes. We wish to digitize all of the slides and create a database (high resolution) , provided with a catalog accessible online (low resolution).

This is a safe, durable, and flexible way to ensure that this asset will not be lost, but will be, instead, maintained for the enjoyment of all interested users, without needing an overly costly physical space.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COSTS TO REALIZE THE DIGITAL ARCHIVE?

This is not an impractically sizable project; however, given the amount of material we are to deal with, we have to face significant costs. For this reason, we ask the help of all willing parties.

The estimated total cost is around €12,000. This amount includes the remuneration of those who will complete the cleaning and the numbering of the  slides, the digitalization of Manilio’s work by a specialized laboratory, the salary of a technician and an archivist for the creation, organization and management of the database and of the catalog, and, finally, various smaller, additional costs (logistics, web space, and so on).

On the other hand, we could opt for a less expensive solution, at least temporarily, and develop the web catalog in a less professional way, relying on platforms for the creation of free online image galleries.

In this case, the minimum budget that would allow us to achieve our primary objective, that is, the preservation and accessibility of Manilio’s work, is approximately €7,600.

This is the minimum goal that we aim to achieve in this micro-funding campaign.

If we manage to collect more than this minimum amount, we may be able to create a website without advertising, to choose the graphic design for the catalog, and to enable it with a search option by keywords or time window. We may be able, also, to make it possible to visualize the images located on a map where the shot was taken. In this way, we would be offer not only the slides, but also the information, provided by their author, associated with each of them, an option that would make the most of their potential.

WHO IS MANILIO?

Manilio traveled, with the same passion, through the diverse territories of mountains, photography, and music. Artistically trained in the music field, he cultivated, since the days of his study in the Conservatory of Music, his fascination with photography. From the very beginning, alongside his interest for nature and landscapes, Manilio constantly searched for a personal language in the abstract and in the informal.

In 1997, he began an intense collaboration with the avant-garde composer Agostino Di Scipio which gave its fruits in a series of works that made use of images projected in a variety of environments and scenes of installations, operas, concerts, and more. In a short time, numerous other collaborations with directors, choreographers, and composers developed and provided opportunities for the first exhibitions, in the context of international festivals dedicated to experimental theater and electronic music.

Registered with A.I.G.A.E as “Guida Ambientale Escursionistica”, Manilio was well known, among climbers, for his two-decades-long explorations of the mountains of the Central Apennines (Sirente, Gran Sasso, and others), and in particular for being one of the first to climb the frozen waterfalls of the Laga mountains. He collaborated with La Rivista della Montagna, the official magazine of the CAI (Italian Climbing Club), and with Intraisass - rivista telematica di letteratura, arte ed alpinismo, an online magazine devoted to literature, art and climbing (here and here two articles by Manilio).

In 2001, he launched an innovative project of educational hiking, the Hiking Group "Semprevisa," at the Middle School "G. Falcone "in Anzio (Rome), where he taught Music Education since 1984. In 2003, he also started teaching the hiking course at the Community College"Andrea Sacchi" in Nettuno (Rome).

The accident

On the 27th of May, 2012, during a climb on Guadagnolo Mount (Prenestina Capranica, Rome), Manilio was hit by a rock that detached from the mountain, fell and lost his life.

SCHEDULE

We, the members of the association, are already taking care, as much as possible, of cleaning and numbering the slides (we believe we can complete about 5,000 of them by the end of September).

We expect to be able to send the finished slides to the photo lab for the digitization by this winter, and to be able to open the database to the public in the spring, at least in the preliminary version.

The rewards will be available starting in November, unless there are some interested in choosing images among those that need to be scanned. In this case, it may be necessary to wait until after the Christmas holidays.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

In order to obtain additional information about the cultural association Atelier Manilio and about this project, those interested can visit our blog  ateliermanilio.wordpress.com (in italian) / ateliermanilioesp.wordpress.com (in spanish) or on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/AtelierManilio).

If you wish to get better acquainted with Manilio’s work, you can visit his website www.manilio.eu.