CODROIPO, ITALY.- The Villa Manin Centre for Contemporary Art presents Instant Europe: Photography and Video from the New Europe, curated by Francesco Bonami and Sarah Cosulich Canarutto. The exhibition will feature the work of 26 artists from the ten new countries which since May 2004 are members of the European Community: Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Hungary.

Although these countries now belong to Europe, they still remain unknown realities of which we often ignore problems, characteristics and identities. The Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, a geographical area particularly close to the new Europe, should act as bridge and intersection point for cultural initiatives promoting the dialogue and knowledge of new territories.

With the exhibition INSTANT EUROPE, Villa Manin Centre for Contemporary Art aims to present a panoramic view on the new member-states through photography and video. These expressions have become nowadays more and more popular among artists as, besides echoing the omnipresence of the mediatic image in present society, they can establish a direct relationship with the spectator. The works of the thirty artists in the exhibition tackle various aspects such as social and political questions but also the problem of identity or the very meaning of art.

From Kaspars Goba's photographs about the isolated life of a workers community on a Latvian island to Jasansky and Polak's poetic black and white images of Czech rural and urban landscape, the artists in the exhibition reveal both the heterogeneity and the uniqueness of these countries. If, on one side the works underline different situations and contexts, on the other, they often unveil common positions: Artur Zmijewski and Jaan Toomik, for example, challenge issues relating to the body, nature and identity in the attempt to react against pre-arranged systems in society and in everyday life.

By means of the artists diverse visions, INSTANT EUROPE aims at stimulating in the spectator both the comprehension of the specificity and the awareness of the universality of experience. This exhibition should not be intended as a complete testimony but as combination of interpretations of all those cultural, geographical, social and political realities which characterise the ten new European countries today. INSTANT EUROPE as dialogue and comparison between images which could enrich the spectator and encourage him to consider in a critical way the context in which he lives.