Insulae Aqua. Gianni Berengo Gardin and Filippo Romano
INSULAE AQUA
Photographs by
Gianni Berengo Gardin and Filippo Romano
Exhibition curated by Alessandra Klimciuk
The Italian Cultural Institute in London and the Aedificante Association present the exhibition Insulae Aqua. Gianni Berengo Gardin and Filippo Romano, curated by Alessandra Klimciuk, hosted at the Institute from May 14 to June 25, 2025.
The exhibition showcases a valuable selection of fifty-nine photographic works (black and white and color images, many of which are vintage prints), taken in Linosa in 1991 by Gianni Berengo Gardin, an undisputed master of international photography, and by Filippo Romano—internationally recognized, also thanks to two participations in the Venice Biennale—specifically for this project between 2021 and 2024.
The Insulae Aqua project, conceived and curated by Alessandra Klimciuk, is a tribute to the island as a fundamental dimension of our being in the world. In its metaphysical and introspective nature, the island becomes image, symbol, dream, and metaphor for our contemporary existence.
Beyond its evocative power and symbolic value as a distant and secluded place—discreet, protective, almost paradisiacal—a remote island amplifies the very sense of separation that the sea outlines, in a radical experience of spatial and temporal isolation. Such a unique existential condition deserves the birth of a neologism: “isolitudine”. Isolitudine does not only describe the existential state of isolation but also the sense of belonging and identity of those born on an island.
Insulae Aqua is an extraordinary testimony to life elsewhere: a visual and narrative journey that speaks of community, identity, territory, and sustainability—attuned to the land and the community inhabiting the small, remote, and untouched island of Linosa, a fascinating and magnetic place with unique landscape, geographical, and natural characteristics—a triumph of environmental, biological, and vital complexity.
The exhibition is accompanied by a volume curated by Alessandra Klimciuk, which includes, in addition to the curator’s essay and reproductions of the exhibited works, texts by Daria Bignardi, Gianni Berengo Gardin, Filippo Romano, and Elisabetta Polezzo. The graphic design is by Andrea Lancellotti, published by Moebius Edizioni as the first issue of the Quaderni Aedificante series (available online on all platforms).
OPENING
May 13, 2025
at 6:30 pm
At the Italian Cultural Institute, London
Speakers will include: Francesco Bongarrà, Director of IIC London; Giuseppe Taramelli, President of Aedificante and General Manager of Taramelli UK Ltd; curator Alessandra Klimciuk; photographer Filippo Romano; and Susanna Berengo Gardin, Head of the Gianni Berengo Gardin Archive.
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BREAKFAST VIEW with curator Alessandra Klimciuk and photographer Filippo Romano
May 16, 2025
at 8.30 am
At IIC London
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EXHIBITION
May 14 – June 25, 2025
Monday – Friday | from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
At the Italian Cultural Institute, London
No reservation required.
Image credits: Gianni Berengo Gardin, Linosa, 1991. All rights reserved. Courtesy Archivio Gianni Berengo Gardin, Milano.