Sicily Photo Masterclass brings community and creativity to a once-shattered region

Every year since 2018, in late spring, a small group of photographers has travelled to a stone farmhouse in the hills of western Sicily. There, they spend a week dining together, swimming in the pool, sharing aperitivos, and exploring the surrounding countryside, which is rich with citrus fruits, olives, figs, prickly pears, plums and persimmons. They take photographs, develop projects, play with sequences, tackle questions in their work, and support each other with constructive critique. “It’s a very safe environment, but very stimulating,” says the photographer Mimi Mollica. “You feel held in a cocoon, where you are encouraged, not criticised.” Photographers who come here commit to the ethos of peer-to-peer support and exchange, and often become lifelong friends. “And there’s another element,” reflects Mollica, “which is my sheer pleasure for partying. The more we are together, the more we can share, the more we can ask of each other, the better life will be.”

The stone house is Casa Mollica, a family home for generations. It is the setting for the annual Sicily Photo Masterclass, a hugely popular residential workshop which this year sees its 10th iteration. After the success of his Photo Meet initiative in his home city of London – which involves portfolio reviews, talks and networking events – Mollica was keen to develop an opportunity for photographers to engage deeply with each other’s practice over a more sustained duration, while also developing new work in an intriguing context. Special guest tutors join the group for two days at the beginning of the week, to share professional advice and creative guidance. “Each photographer arrives with their own project, and benefits from both individual reviews with myself and the guest tutors, and group presentations and crits. But I think what makes Sicily Photo Masterclass special is the brief I set, and the collaborative project that photographers contribute to.”

In the early hours of 14 January 1968, an earthquake ripped through western Sicily’s Belíce Valley. The already impoverished rural region was devastated, with many older properties unable to withstand the tremors, and the hilly and uneven terrain impeding rescue operations. Hundreds were killed, and over 100,000 left homeless. Inefficiency, bureaucracy, corruption and lack of preparedness at state level meant that recovery stalled, grants came way too late, and entire villages were abandoned. The economic impact of the earthquake remains tangible to this day. At Sicily Photo Masterclass, it has also inspired a conceptual apparatus for The Valley, a collective, cumulative project spanning almost a decade, incorporating the work of dozens of photographers.