For the second consecutive year, Alt_Ra renews its collaboration with INSIGHT Foto Festival, addressing the theme “ABITO” through the lens of augmented reality. Understood as skin, a space of identity, and a way of being in the world, the concept of “abito” (dress / I live) is explored by Erica Bardi, blurring the boundaries between the physical body and the virtual environment. The work is part of a speculative inquiry that examines the connection between the real and the virtual, between inner space and the universal. This dual nature takes shape in an installation straddling a physical and a virtual dimension, giving space to the project’s dualism between inside and outside. While the material component triggers a reflection on intimate memory, the digital extension imbues the shared space with new meanings. The synergy between Bardi and Alt_Ra’s curatorial approach thus activates a critical space in which form becomes experience and identity inhabits a constant metamorphosis.
Erica Bardi (Naples, 1998) studied photography at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and the Cfp Bauer in Milan, developing a body of work that combines photography, sculpture, and publishing. In 2025, she spent a semester at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig. In 2024 and 2025, she exhibited at Casa Testori in Milan. In 2025, she published the first edition of her book As long as the Sun lasts, presented at Chippendale Studio and subsequently exhibited at the Bobbina Cultural Space in Sofia, and selected for the traveling exhibition “Folded Cities” curated by Swit Platform.
As Long As the Sun Lasts (2025-2026)
The project emerged during a period of profound fluctuation, between inertia and intense emotional activity. While studying comets, I discovered that these celestial bodies alternate between a very long period of silent stasis and bursts of vitality as soon as they approach the Sun. Identifying with this changing nature, I sought their presence in my daily life, investigating the connection between my body and their journey through the cosmos. Thus I began to navigate the transitional space between cold and light, seeking a Sun that would activate me. Just as the comet develops its coma only when exposed to its star, so I understood that being alive lies in the ability to let oneself be transformed by the space we occupy. As Long As the Sun Lasts suggests that as long as a source of light exists, one can awaken, inhabit one’s own metamorphosis, and remain alive. It is an exploration of vulnerability and the possibility of finding, in the universe, a way to feel at home.
