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National Geographic Italia returns to Rome's Palazzo delle Esposizioni with a new international photographic exhibition. Following on from "Water, Air, Fire and Earth", "Mother Earth", "Our World" and "Colors of the World", "The Meaning of Life" runs at the Via Nazionale exhibition space between 9 March and 13 May 2012. Photographs by the Society's finest photographers take us on a voyage to the key values shared by billions of human (and not just human) beings. This entrancing photographic journey offers four "stopovers": Love, Work, Peace and Health.
Love: photographs convey this deep sentiment that unites human beings and extends to animals, nature, Planet Earth and objects, or can focus on an ideal. Love is also an attribute that other living species share.
Work: a basic activity and a basic need, without which survival would be impossible, work offers men and women freedom and dignity. Animals also dedicate their existence to work and, above all, work directly for human beings.
Peace: it is one of the hardest things, to live in peace with others, with ourselves, to respect other people and other living creatures, the world in which we live and diversity. And yet, peace, so often suffocated by conflict, remains one of humankind's most vital needs.
Health: perhaps our most important value, because when health is impaired, everything else we can do becomes limited. All around the World - with huge differences between continents - people suffer, as is only natural. Health, however, is not merely an absence of sickness; it is a key goal in the quest for physical and mental well-being.
Love, work, peace and health captured by the camera are feelings and values that can intensely captivate viewers' attention. With great professionalism, in their work National Geographic photographers are expressing their own emotions. It is impossible not to be affected by the passion evident in the photographs on show. Once again, the result is an exhibition of splendid images which plumb in directly to our heads and hearts.
The four sections of the exhibition, together, encompass "the meaning of life". They also share the common thread that unites National Geographic Italia's photographic exhibitions, and which is the Society's central mission: to preserve the planet and ensure the survival of all living species.