Tiny Florence On Display

written by Ava Lees, Sydney Kerrihard & Pedro Calderon for SPEL: Public Relations

Students from Florence University of the Arts presented their latest photography exhibit Tiny Florence, detailing a collection of tiny images taken by study abroad students that capture the city’s beauty and culture. This display features intimate snapshots of Florence’s vibrant streets_, from candid portraits of locals to the majestic arches of the Duomo. For many students, this exhibit marked both their first time exploring the city and their first experience with photography, making the project an opportunity for discovery and creative challenge.

Tiny Florence is an exhibit that is done every year, four times a year. The students are instructed to use the same format with big limitations, black and white and square photos. The big change to the exhibit is the photographers. With Florence being a big city, and the frequency of the exhibit, students still manage to capture unique moments and sights that catch their eye.

Students taking the Introduction to Digital Photography and Introduction to Street Photography courses spend their time exploring the city, taking photographs of architecture, monuments, people candidly, and scenery. They spend time editing the photos in Adobe Lightroom, using methods learned in the classroom to tune them for submission into the exhibit. 

Consequently, students in an Intermediate Digital Photography course curate the exhibit. In total, about 20,000 photographs are taken, around 400 are submitted for consideration, and only 65 make the Final Cut. You can see the excitement on student’s faces when they spot their work on the walls of the Palazzi Community Center. 

“I’m proud,” states photography student Jessica Miller. “I’d never taken a photography class before so it was really cool to get to learn everything and then get to present these,” she continued. In fact, for many students in this course, this was their first time taking photos with a camera. Marco Gualtieri, the course instructor, highlighted the students' rapid progress, noting, “Two weeks ago, some of them had no idea how a camera worked, so to be already here in a first exhibit… I admire their confidence.”

Sara Giangrande, who delivered a welcoming address to attendants and has work on display at Corridoio Fiorentino said, “It feels really surreal honestly. If you told me even a month ago that I would have work at an exhibition in Italy I would have looked at you crazy. It’s been really rewarding as well to be able to practice a different type of photography than I’m normally used to and having work hanging in an exhibition has just been really cool to be a part of. I’m really excited and happy about it.”

The purpose of Tiny Florence is to display students' photography, but many other students also worked behind the scenes. Taylor Deuel, for example, had multiple photos on display but was also capturing pictures of attendees enjoying the exhibit for her photography internship. She admires the collection, stating “I think it’s awesome, it’s really cool to see everyone’s photos come together and they’re all the same here but we all have different perspectives of the city.” 

Adam Serfilippi agreed, saying, “It’s a really unique experience, I know a lot of people who have been doing photography a lot longer than I have and it’s just really awesome to display my work and have it put up on the wall. I’m very excited.”

Valentina Monacò, who helped to plan and lead this event states, “It is always exciting to have students be able to exhibit because our teaching method is based a lot on experiential learning. We want our students to feel as though what they do in class is able to be seen by the local community. So that’s why we try to organize events like this where students are able to practice and show what they have learned in class.”

Tiny Florence will be on display at the Palazzi Community Center until October 16 and photographs that did not get chosen for the exhibit can be found online at Corridoio Fiorentino's website. The photos in Corridoio Fiorentino are for sale and all proceeds will go towards scholarships for future FUA students. Unframed photos are 15€ and a framed copy is 30€. They can be purchased at Palazzi Community Center by speaking with the front desk. 

The next exhibition coming to Palazzi Community Center will be an external artist named Nicoletta Salonon, who is a talented artist and a member of the FUA staff. This exhibit will open on October 17th.