Following the release of a 20/21 photography book that represented the culminating project of New York photographer Ethan White’s nine-month residency in Venice, Venezia FC has announced the continuation of its Venezia FC Artists-in-Residency (VFC AiR) program with 21-year-old Venice-based street photographer Eric Scaggiante as its next resident.
Eric Scaggiante, aka @eric.persona, is 21 and he’s born and raised in Venice. His short life has been characterized by a few simple passions: riding bicycles, falling in love, baking tiramisù, having fun, and observing reality. Since he was a child was easier to see him on a bicycle than standing on his legs. This passion is crucial, lead him to know almost every person he knows today, and gave him his first real job for a bicycle company based in Bergamo, where he moved immediately after high school. Then, with the first salary, in November 2019 Eric bought his first and current camera; from that moment as well as looking at the reality as it is, he started to shoot it looking for its beauty and craziness.
“With Stadio Penzo finally reopened to the public, after seeing a vapid form of football played behind closed doors for more than a year, we felt the occasion called for an intimate, anthropological look at the human experience of attending a match,” said Venezia FC brand director Ted Philipakos. “Eric is a very young and still emerging photographer but with a unique eye for human behavior, capturing a raw reality in images that range from endearing to humorous to uncomfortable – something of a young Venetian Martin Parr. And the fact that Eric had never attended a football match figured to only make the perspective more interesting. Further, this is a special season for Venezia FC, returning to Serie A after 19 years, and we wanted to document the city living these historic moments.”
When Venezia asked me to start this project, I was thrilled,” said Scaggiante. “It was an occasion to do what I like most, to tell the story of people, in this case of those who go to the stadium. I like to look at reality, searching for its charm, positive or negative, trying to photograph it as I see it. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t; it’s always a challenge. It’s a dialogue between myself and reality.”
