Six perspectives, a city in transition. IED Turin showcases Genoa’s Porto Antico and the Levante Waterfront in a photography exhibition at Palazzo Ducale
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The horizon of desire: stories from Genoa’s Waterfronts.
Date
03 September 2026
Every city has places where its identity emerges with particular intensity. In Genoa, that place is the port: a threshold between sea and land, where memory coexists with constant transformation. It is from this physical and symbolic threshold that The horizon of desire: stories from Genoa’s Waterfront takes shape. The photographic exhibition, on view at Palazzo Ducale from 17 September to 7 October 2026, presents projects by Melissa Billotti, Silvia Bussolino, Giulia Franceschini Beghini, Penelope Siria Meneghetti, Fabiana Scalise and Sofia Valabrega, developed as part of the thesis pathway of the BA in Photography at IED Torino.
A week-long residency and six months of research transformed Genoa’s Porto Antico and Levante Waterfront into a laboratory for observing and interpreting the present. Developed in collaboration with Porto Antico di Genova, with the support of the Genoa Chamber of Commerce and Convention Bureau Genova, the project invites us to consider these places not simply as landscapes to be documented, but as spaces to be crossed, experienced and understood. The six individual projects explore the relationship between people, architecture and territory, bringing the city’s layers of history into dialogue with the changes that are reshaping its future.
Landscape photography, documentary storytelling, archival materials and personal testimonies come together in six distinct yet complementary perspectives, brought together in the exhibition under the curatorship of Mucho Mas! Through their individual approaches and visual languages, the artists explore the relationship between people, architecture and territory, bringing to light stories of work and leisure, migration and memory, relationships and everyday practices. Together, the works form a collective portrait of a territory in constant transformation, moving beyond stereotypical representations of the port landscape while marking, for the six photographers, a transition from the research developed during their studies towards the emergence of a new and distinctive authorial voice.
The project takes its inspiration from Despina, the city described by Italo Calvino in Invisible Cities: a city that takes on different meanings depending on who observes it and the direction from which it is approached. In the same way, The Horizon of Desire brings together six personal interpretations without attempting to reduce Genoa to a single image. Photography thus becomes a tool for questioning the relationship between memory and the future, belonging and change, while opening up new perspectives on a city that continues to transform alongside the people who inhabit it.
Opening
Wednesday, 16 September 2026, 6:00 PM
Palazzo Ducale – Ducale Spazio Aperto
Piazza Giacomo Matteotti 9, Genoa
The exhibition will be open from 17 September to 7 October 2026, Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00 AM–6:00 PM.
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