Identity Flows

The exhibition at the Triennale di Milano contains the projects of the 16 young photographers involved in Urban Layers coming from all over the world, exhibited in an urban set-up made of iron structures and large prints. The projection of the video The encounter by Adrian Paci, an internationally renowned artist who has contributed to the project as a guest, concludes the exhibition, even symbolically, taking us back in the heart of Sicily and recalling the ancestral values of encounter, history and art. “Urban Layers – Identity Flows” has realised, during 2016, an international residency for 6 young artists in Gibellina (Trapani, Sicily), three urban festivals in the cities of Málaga (Spain), Thessaloniki (Greece) and Lecce (Italy), a research on Audience Development, an exhibition and a workshop in Milan and finally the publication of a book.

  The theme of the entire project is Identity Flows, in the double meaning of “flowing identity” and “identity flows”. The artists involved in Urban Layers started their experience in Sicily which has become a symbol of the mass migration flows affecting the entire Mediterranean. They have been selected through an international call and hosted in a residency in Gibellina (Trapani). Here they have been able to face the complex issues related to European identity, challenged by the encounter of different cultures and languages, by their admixture and by their clash which generate continuously new forms of society.

The historical interactions among the peoples of the Mediterranean, which have largely contributed to the design of the current cultural, linguistic and religious borders, confirm that the formation of identity is a fluid and ongoing process. In this delicate historical moment Europe rethinks about its political, economic and cultural role, considering not only the dramatic current events, but also and especially its unstoppable demographic and social changes.

10–19 March 2017
Identity Flows. Visual routes across the Mediterranean Sea
curated by Matteo Balduzzi
Triennale di Milano
viale Alemagna 6, Milan