BERGAMO - BRESCIA ITALIAN CULTURAL CAPITAL 2023
Re-imagine equality
The exhibition I created, wants to explore what the painter Ceruti would create in the contemporary era.
We captured 39 individuals in Gandino (BG, Italy) neighborhood, each portrayed in high-class attire, emphasizing equality, diversity, and the beauty of everyday life.
PRINTS CAN BE PURCHASED
®Luca Capponi
ART IS KIND
In July 2016, we traveled to the European border with a framed sheet of plexiglass a canvas inspired by Picasso’s idea of transforming stories through materials. We arrived in Subotica, near the Hungarian border, where we found a Syrian family living inside the ruins of an abandoned duty-free warehouse.
Just a few steps from the border, we met two brothers, aged 7 and 10, who had been living there with their family for nearly eight months while waiting to cross legally. We spent time together, listening to their stories. Through them, we found what we had been searching for.
This work did not try to explain or solve anything. It simply held a moment — a record of presence, resilience, and humanity in a place shaped by crossing, waiting, and survival. Rather than documenting their story in a conventional way, we wanted to bring together art and documentary. We let the drawings emerge from them.
The result was poignant and deeply moving. They drew bridges and houses, symbols of the journey they had made, walking for three months to reach Serbia. Their drawings became a quiet reflection of their experience, and of the distance they had already crossed.
modern jungles
During another part of our journey through Serbia, we encountered people living in the so-called “jungles” (informal camps hidden in wooded areas near the border). Men, women, and young people had built temporary shelters from plastic sheets, branches, and discarded materials, waiting for the right moment to attempt the crossing. Days were spent in uncertainty, marked by long periods of waiting.
In these spaces, time seemed suspended, shaped by hope, fear, and the constant possibility of movement.
MigrArt - Tommi’s roll
MigrArt began in 2015 as a project by the Menti Libere collective, who traveled the Balkan route in reverse — from Friuli to the Turkish–Syrian border over three months. Along the journey, a simple roll of paper and colored markers became a shared language with the people they met, offering connection and small moments of relief in difficult conditions, especially for children. In the following years, Tommaso Sandri continued the project across other migration routes, from Southern Italy to Calais, Bosnia, and later to Mali in 2020.
