Gian Paolo Barbieri at SIAMO UMANI
The Gian Paolo Barbieri Foundation ETS will take part in the central talk of SIAMO UMANI, a day organized by the KOS-Vita al Centro Association dedicated to the encounter between photography, art, words and thought, taking place on 4 October 2026 at Monte Mamaor.
At the heart of the project is a question: what does it mean to be human today?
Through different languages and perspectives, SIAMO UMANI explores themes deeply connected to the human experience, including memory, wounds, the body, beauty and the responsibility of the gaze.
From 2:30 to 4:30 pm, the Foundation be a guest in the central talk alongside photographer Gio Sormani, with his work on Chernobyl, and journalist and writer Gigi Riva, author of C’era l’amore a Sarajevo.
Three seemingly distant experiences thus become three different ways of questioning what it means to be human: Chernobyl through the lens of trauma, Sarajevo through memory, and Gian Paolo Barbieri through beauty and the construction of the image.
Through a selection of Barbieri’s photographs and a dedicated presentation, the Foundation will explore his work not only as an expression of extraordinary aesthetic research, but also as the result of a distinctive way of encountering, understanding and transforming the world.
The proposed journey will be guided by three central aspects of his practice: encounter, culture and inventiveness.
Encounter lies at the heart of the many collaborations that shaped Barbieri’s career, from designers to models, with whom he developed relationships capable of transforming photography into a space for exchange and exploration.
Culture runs throughout his entire visual imagination: theatre, cinema, painting, literature and art history become tools through which he interprets reality and discovers new possibilities for constructing his images.
Inventiveness is ultimately expressed in his ability to conceive, design and experiment, using sets, materials, lighting and photographic techniques in the service of an idea, transforming imagination into a concrete creation.
From this perspective, the power of Barbieri’s photographs is due not simply to what appears within the image, but above all to a way of looking at reality, understanding it, and transforming it. The body, the face, gestures, identity, elegance, and theatricality become tools through which to explore the human being and the ways in which we construct our own image.
Barbieri’s photographs will thus enter into dialogue with the experiences of Chernobyl and Sarajevo, within a single journey.
If Chernobyl reveals what happens to humanity when something breaks, and Sarajevo tells the story of humanity within war, memory and the ability to continue loving, Barbieri instead explores the human capacity to imagine, create and transform reality into what we would like it to be.
INFORMATION
📍 Monte Mamaor
📅 Sunday, 4 October 2026
🎟️ Free admission
🕝 PROGRAMME
7:00 am–3:00 pm —
Land Art installation · Tiziano Ronchi
7:00 am–2:00 pm —
Artistic interventions throughout the site: Land Art, performance, street theatre, music and painting
9:00–10:00 am —
Yoga
10:00 am–6:00 pm —
Horses and riders · Photographic portraits printed on site
10:00–11:00 am —
Film and talk on psychiatry
11:00 am–12:00 pm —
Rosa Park · Short film by Alessandro Garilli, followed by a discussion
12:00–2:00 pm —
Murdocca + lunch
2:30–4:30 pm — CENTRAL TALK — SIAMO UMANI
Gio Sormani · Chernobyl
Gigi Riva · C’era l’amore a Sarajevo
Gian Paolo Barbieri Foundation ETS · Body, beauty and the construction of the image
4:30–6:00 pm —
7milamiglialontano · Presentation and screening dedicated to South America
Following —
Closing concert