Le Piazze [In]visibili – Invisible Squares- November 2021-March 2022

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The story of twenty-one Italian squares, told in words and photographs by Italian authors.

Olivo Barbieri, Piazza del Popolo, Rome, February 3, 2004

Creator and Curator, Marco Delogu

Studio 3 Gallery, Jarman Building, University of Kent.

Invisible Squares features photographs of twenty Italian piazzas, taken between the end of March and the beginning of May, when Italy, like much of the rest of the world, found itself in the difficult confinement phase. These photographs [along with Barbieri’s above] are accompanied by short original texts by Italian writers connected to those places and piazzas by memories, experiences and literary references.

Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Luigi Di Maio

The “state of exceptionality” that was initiated in the spring of 2020 has resulted in a series of upheavals in practically every aspect of everyday life.
We have suddenly found ourselves shrouded in a sense of expectation and suspension, which has engulfed the very places that we formerly inhabited and filled. Joseph Rykwert states that “Italy is the land of a hundred piazzas”. These piazzas, the symbol of Italy’s widespread beauty, now return to being – perhaps for the first time in our lives – imaginary places “seen” like this only by the great artists and the minds who designed, planned, built and adorned them.