Erik Kessels. An image

The exhibition An image by Erik Kesselsset up in the Immersion Room of the Gallerie d'Italia - Turinis an immersive video installation that merges thousands of photographs taken from theIntesa Sanpaolo Publifoto Archive. The Dutch artist, known for his work with the vernacular photographyconstructs a gigantic metamorphic 'blob' that transforms historical documents into a composition dynamic visual and constantly changing.

The installation presents itself as a fluid and multifaceted portrait of theItaly in the 20th centuryin which images of war, policy, work, sports and everyday life interpenetrate, transform and dissolve into a moving human archive. It is not just a vision, but a real immersive experience 360 degrees, where the viewer is free to move through the space to catch details and narratives that emerge and disappear.

The soundtrack, specially created by electronic musicians Robin Rimbaud (aka Scanner) e Stefano Piliaaccompanies the continuous transformation of the work, alternating moments mystical and electronic in an immersive flow of sound. The work breaks all traditional narrative patterns, rejecting chronology to access a postmodern and sensory vision of images, also made possible by the use of theartificial intelligence.

L'Publifoto Archivewith over 7 million shots from the 1930s to the 1990s, is an extraordinary iconographic heritage that is thus returned to the public in a form unprecedented, poetic and engagingwhich invites reflection on collective memory and the power of photography to tell the story of a nation's experience.