Due angoli due ruote
Elena Mancini’s thesis project for GIOS Torino
Academic year
2024-2025
For her Photography thesis, Elena Mancini developed an intimate, layered project within the GIOS Torino workshop in Volpiano – the Made in Italy branch of the historic bicycle brand founded in 1948 by former professional cyclist Tolmino Gios. The photographic series, structured in three visual chapters and designed as a photo book, transforms the workshop into a space of storytelling.
Inspired by Richard Sennett’s idea of craftsmanship as a way of life, the project explores the value of manual labor as a space of memory, transmission, and relationship. It opens with the absence of figures, continues through an archival dialogue between generations, and ends with the present gesture shared by father and son. Each image restores dignity to slowness, imperfection, and the embodied knowledge passed down over time.
The Photography thesis project explores the narrative potential of the photographic image as a tool to investigate relationships, gestures, and family memories within the artisanal context of the GIOS Torino workshop. Through a layered visual language, students reflect on photography as a practice that merges documentation and interpretation, revealing the stories embedded in places and everyday gestures.
Relatrice: Giulia Ticozzi
Correlatore: Antonio La Grotta
