Once again, the territory of Lake Garda and photography come together in a new project organized by the Alto Garda Museum. The museum’s main objective is to enhance and promote the numerous photographic collections related to the Garda landscape, with particular attention to the anthropization of the territory and the changes in society over the years.
In this context, the project to enhance the archive of Giovanni Skulina (1912-1979) fits in. Skulina’s photographs represent valuable evidence of the Garda landscape. The Alto Garda Museum also preserves important collections of photographs by other authors such as Carlo Armani, Augusto Baroni, Alois Beer, and Silvio Pozzini.
The public presentation of about two hundred photographs taken by Skulina between the 1940s and 1950s reveals a historical period that has been little studied. The images capture a context in which the last moments of a still rural world coexist with the emergence of mass tourism activities that would dominate in the following years.
In the photos, we can observe luxurious hotels, stalls with local products, and amazed tourists getting off tourist minibusses. These images contrast with the views of villages still untouched by urbanization, religious ceremonies taking place along dirt roads, and traditional peasant trades tied to the changing seasons.
After almost seventy years of obscurity, thanks to the generosity of Giovanni Skulina’s heirs, the Alto Garda Museum, in collaboration with the Araba Fenice Association of Arco and the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage and Activities of the Province of Trento, has decided to bring these extraordinary, unpublished photographic testimonies back to light and show them to the public for the first time. This is a way to give them the visibility they deserve and to allow everyone to immerse themselves in a fascinating and little-known past of Lake Garda. You can learn more about the news here.
