Helen Cammock's 'Che si può fare' at Collezione Maramotti

Helen Cammock, the seventh winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, presents her solo exhibition 'Che si può fare' at Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia. The show explores the concept of lament in women's lives through a multimedia collage created during her 2018 artist residency in Italy. Cammock's practice is deeply influenced by music, drawing on the works of Nina Simone and Alice Coltrane, as well as 17th-century Italian pre-operatic music. The exhibition's title is taken from a 1664 aria by Barbara Strozzi, which Cammock learned to sing herself. The display spans four rooms, featuring a three-part video that combines images, Baroque music, and performance with interviews with women encountered during her Italian journey, including photographer Letizia Battaglia, a nun, social activists, migrants, and refugees. Themes of resistance and female oppression are central. The show also includes five vinyl engravings, a silkscreen frieze, and a catalogue with a vinyl recording of Cammock singing Strozzi's aria. Cammock's career trajectory includes a BA in Sociology (1992), a decade in social services, a photography degree (2008), and an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art (2011). She won the Max Mara Art Prize in 2018, which funded a six-month residency in Italy, and later shared the Turner Prize in 2019. The exhibition is organized by Max Mara, Whitechapel Gallery, and Collezione Maramotti.