Curated by Gianmaria Tammaro
Around six years ago, in 2020, Camilla Cattabriga, Claudia Sicuranza and Eleonora Contessi founded EKI, a journal devoted not only to photography but to light across all the arts. As they explain, they felt the need for a point of reference and a space where they could continue exploring the subject beyond their formal studies.
Over the course of six issues, they have interviewed leading practitioners from around the world—not only cinematographers, but also artists working across a wide range of visual disciplines. In doing so, they have brought together a rich variety of voices, experiences and perspectives, while using the project as an opportunity to deepen both their understanding of their profession and their understanding of themselves.
EKI is a small, self-published journal aimed, inevitably, at a highly specialised readership. For this reason, Cattabriga, Sicuranza and Contessi began organising dedicated launch events around each issue, enabling them to reach a wider audience while giving greater substance and depth to the space they had always wanted to create.
The latest issue, devoted to light and water, explores the intimate relationship between light and the elements: how light changes, how it is transformed, and how it is altered, condensed or even made lighter. The next issue of EKI will focus instead on the relationship between light and fear. It will be, say Cattabriga, Sicuranza and Contessi, an opportunity to discover new perspectives on a subject—fear itself—that we often assume we already understand.
Let’s start at the beginning. How did EKI come about?
Camilla Cattabriga: The idea for EKI took shape at a very specific moment: just after we had finished our studies at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. That was where we first met, became friends and discovered our shared fascination with light. With the journal, we wanted to explore the use of light in the broadest possible sense. At the Centro Sperimentale, our focus had naturally been on cinema and cinematic lighting, but we wanted to investigate light across every artistic discipline. Our aim was to engage anyone with an interest in the arts.
We began with a pilot issue—Issue 00—and from that moment we never looked back. We have now reached our sixth issue.
Has there ever been any sense of competition between you? After all, you’re all in the same profession.
Camilla Cattabriga: Not really. We’ve always got on well, and our friendship developed quite naturally. We’ve always supported one another, both personally and professionally.
Claudia Sicuranza: We work in a very close-knit environment. We’re surrounded by friends and people of our own generation who also work in the film industry, even setting aside the years we spent together at the Centro Sperimentale. If we saw one another as competitors, it would make life very difficult.
That’s also one of EKI’s aims: to create a shared space where people can grow together, exchange ideas and learn from one another.
When you left the Centro Sperimentale, did you ever feel the lack of a point of reference? Of a space where you could share ideas and experiences?
Eleonora Contessi: EKI grew out of a desire to fill a gap we all felt, much as Claudia was saying. Working in film is incredibly immersive, both during the preparation of a project and after it has come to an end. You spend long periods inside a kind of bubble. In everyday life, though, you want to keep your mind engaged; you look for new ideas and fresh sources of inspiration. EKI grew out of that need. It gives three women like us, working in the film industry, a chance to grow as individuals and to engage in dialogue with others. That said, even without EKI, given the kind of people we are, we would probably have sought out something similar anyway, simply because we feel that need so strongly. EKI is a catalyst—an important one. It gives us an extra incentive to keep researching, learning and exchanging ideas.
Claudia Sicuranza: Cinema is, by its very nature, a container for other art forms. It embraces disciplines such as painting and theatre. Focusing on light solely through books on cinema felt somewhat limiting to us. Those are wonderful and immensely important texts, of course, but we felt there was room for a broader perspective—one that is more open to dialogue with the wider world of the arts.
Do you think the people you interviewed felt the same need?
Camilla Cattabriga: I would say so. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. For Issue 00, we interviewed Alex Webb, and from that moment we never looked back. Every issue has featured internationally renowned figures with expertise in light across a wide range of disciplines. I have to admit that we’ve been genuinely surprised every time someone has shown such enthusiasm for the project. One particularly memorable experience was our interview with Natasha Braier for the third issue of EKI, devoted to light in the digital age. She was the one who suggested we all meet online to talk, and from the outset she showed a real curiosity about what we were doing.
It’s not easy to find journals that explore light from such a broad, cross-disciplinary perspective. She took inspiration from our journal to organise a major event devoted to light. EKI remains a niche journal with a relatively small print run, yet it seems to be making a real impact.
What role does Matilda De Angelis play in EKI?
Camilla Cattabriga: We’re extremely grateful to her. Matilda funded both issue 00 and issue 01. If EKI was able to get off the ground, it was thanks in no small part to her support. Whenever she has the opportunity, she continues to support and help us.
The physical dimension—through the launch events for each new issue as well as specialist fairs such as Mag to Mag—remains very important to you. Why is that?
Eleonora Contessi: Because it’s important for us to get direct feedback on what we do. By talking to people in person, we can understand whether our work has achieved what we set out to do. We appreciate receiving suggestions, comments—and, of course, compliments too. Watching someone leaf through the magazine and hearing their reactions gives you a completely different sense of what you’re doing. EKI remains, above all, a print publication.
Claudia Sicuranza: Becoming part of the publishing world has also been an important step for us. As I mentioned earlier, we’ve always studied and read specialist books and, of course, industry magazines. Finding ourselves on the other side has given us the opportunity to discover a world we knew very little about. Mag to Mag, in particular, gives us the chance to meet publishers from all over the world, each with different experiences and perspectives. Behind every magazine there are people like us, driven by a deep passion and willing to invest everything they have in their projects.
How did you arrive at your latest issue, dedicated to the relationship between light and water? And why did you choose to launch it with an event like this?
Camilla Cattabriga: Over the past few years, we’ve realised how important it is to build other activities around each issue. Partly for financial reasons, because they help us sustain and fund the work we do, and partly to offer our readers an opportunity to explore the subject in greater depth. We had already organised an event in 2022 for Solar Light and another in 2024 for Erotic Light. With Light and Water, we decided to create greater continuity between these events. Of course, the printed magazine remains at the heart of EKI, and it always will.
Eleonora Contessi: In other words, we wanted to create an extension of the magazine, not an alternative to it. This also allows us to welcome artists into a physical space through live events, exhibitions and installations. At MONK, we invited artists whose work was connected with the theme of water. Even the exhibition design was intended to immerse visitors in the atmosphere of the issue, as though they were beneath the surface of the sea. Then, to round off the evening, there were a variety of live musical performances.
Are you thinking of developing EKI in other directions?
Camilla Cattabriga: For the time being, we want to keep our focus on the printed magazine. We’d also like to develop the website alongside it, with additional content. For a while, we considered making the magazine available in digital format as well, but it simply wouldn’t have the same impact.
Claudia Sicuranza: We always feel a little disappointed when an issue sells out and people can no longer get hold of it. At the same time, of course, we’re delighted, because it means that issue has been successful. A great deal of research goes into every edition, and we’re pleased when people buy it and can engage with the subject at the slower pace that print encourages. Digital is simply a different way of experiencing content.
Camilla Cattabriga: The magazine as a physical object allows us to create genuine interactions, both with our readers and with light itself. Losing that more tangible, more tactile experience would be a real shame.
After six issues, what do you think you’ve learned?
Claudia Sicuranza: We’ve certainly learned how to make a magazine. (laughs) In the beginning it was much more challenging, whereas now the whole process feels far more natural and straightforward.
Camilla Cattabriga: Conducting interviews was genuinely challenging for us at first, simply because we didn’t know how to structure them. As Claudia was saying, it comes much more naturally to us now. We also take considerably less time to complete each issue. And, beyond that, EKI has allowed us to learn many other skills we simply didn’t have before, particularly when it comes to the publishing side of things.
Claudia Sicuranza: It’s also given us the opportunity to meet so many extraordinary people we probably would never have met otherwise.
Eleonora Contessi: Perhaps the most enjoyable part is the printing process. We work on the cover, trying to find the image that best represents both the theme of the issue and light itself. We’ve learned how to choose the paper stock and manage virtually every stage of the production process. And we’ve learned it all through practice—by making mistakes, experimenting, and listening to other people’s advice.
Camilla Cattabriga: Then there’s the insight we gain through the artists we interview and get to know. Thanks to them, we learn more about their craft and, inevitably, about our own as well. In the end, that’s the very reason EKI came into being.
Pensate che il vostro rapporto con la luce sia cambiato?
Claudia Sicuranza: Absolutely.
Camilla Cattabriga: In countless different ways, and you notice it in the smallest things. It’s an awareness that evolves from one issue to the next, constantly taking on new forms. We’re currently working on an issue about light and fear, and we’re finding ourselves engaging with aspects we simply hadn’t considered before.
Eleonora Contessi: It’s not just a matter of learning to see differently; it’s a more intimate, deeper kind of learning that broadens your perspective. Take the issue on Erotic Light, for example: the artists didn’t only tell us about their relationship with light, but also about their relationship with eroticism. The same is happening with the issue on fear: fear changes depending on the person you’re speaking to. In the end, EKI has taught us that there are no fixed rules, despite the rigidity of the world we work in. Somehow, EKI manages to bring together and reconcile perspectives that are remarkably diverse and often very far apart.
What have you learned?
Eleonora Contessi: That there is no single truth, and no single way of seeing things. It’s an awareness that enriches you—both as a person and as a cinematographer.
