Kenro Izu. Luoghi dell'Anima
6 giugno - 31 agosto 2025

A travel through the sacred places, from Tibet to Egypt, seen through the lens and the deep sensitivity of Kenro Izu, cultured and refined Japanese photographer: this the narrative thread of the exhibition, hosted from June 6^th to August 31th in the Captain room of the Rocca.

Curated by Filippo Maggia the exhibition displays 55 photographs realized by the Japanese master belonging to the series “Sacred Places 1&2”, “Eternal Light”, “Bhutan Sacred Within”, “India Prayer Echoes”, “Angkor”, “Laos Charity”, and “Fuzhou – Forgotten Land”, in a charming and engaging path in the travel photography, through the soul places.

Further than their subjects, the photographs, realized in the analogue version with the optical bench, touch also for Izu’s printing technique: colour printings and platinum printings.

I have been taking pictures of world sacred places since 1979.

The topic on which since ever my photography focuses on is “the beauty of the impermanence”. I catch the beauty in a flower, because its life lasts just few days and I can see the daily changes.

Even the stoned monuments in the sacred places begin to turn into sand after some thousand years as a result of natural events – sun, wind and rain.

I find it wonderful. Life of humans is rather short, and knowing that the existence has a limit, I catch the magnificence of people within this time lapse.

As if time was shining a stone, turning it into a jewel. This is what I see in people.

My photographs expose in this exhibition and a book represent a homage to the beauty of life. Kenro Izu, May 2025

Kenro Izu

He was born in Osaka in 1949 and raised in Hiroshima, Kenro Izu began to take photos in the 1970s years, completing hiseducation at the Nihon University in Tokyo. In 1970 he moved to New York, where he lived for around fifty years before coming back to Japan where he currently resides, in Kanazawa. Inspired by the pictures of the Victorian Francis Frith and ancient photographic expedition in Egypt, in 1979 he undertook his first travel in the land of pyramids. He was impressed by the spirituality of the place and the deep sense of caducity, inspired by the sight of the ruins, whose huge stones raise as imposing tracks of human being’s building action.

The photo collection “Sacred Places” starts from this experience and the photos taken during this travel, the work will become one of the cornerstones of his research through the time: for more than thirty years Izu pushed towards more far away destinations, taking photos of the most evocative sacred places of the world, from Scotland to Mexico, from Cambodia to India and Indonesia, from Syria to Tibet, from Peru to the Isla de Pascua.

In 2023 the majestic volume ““Kenro Izu: The Spirit Within, A Fifty Years Journey” was published, a complete collection of his photographs, realized from the debut to today.

His works have been displayed on the occasion of several personal and collective exhibitions in the whole world.

The catalogue is published by SILVANA EDITORIALE.

Ticket price:

6 Euro for the exhibition and free tour of the Rocca

12 Euro for the tour of the whole monumental complex of the Ugo Da Como Foundation (Rocca and House of Podestà)

The exhibition has been realized thanks to the support of