The Shape of the Air, winner of the 2024 grant for the Promotion of Italian Photography Abroad by the Italian Ministry of Culture, is an original exhibition project that brings art and science into dialogue by exploring non-optical images — that is, the visual processes through which the human brain forms mental images using all the senses except direct sight.
The exhibition includes photographs developed in the darkroom by the artist, alongside objects ranging from suggestive semi-abstract forms to reinterpretations of conversations held during the BRaIN program at the McGill University Health Centre Research Institute. Metallic inserts further contribute to the materiality of the installation, experimenting with the interplay between image, text, and surface.
The exhibition investigates how images are generated in the human brain, prompting the viewer to reflect on their potential forms and linking this to the logos as a further key element in the construction of knowledge processes.
August 28th 2025 – October 25th 2025
Free admission
Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Montréal
1200 Av. du Dr Penfield
• from Monday to Thursday: 9am – 1pm and 2pm – 5pm
• Friday: 9am – 1pm
Curator : Giangavino Pazzola
The exhibition was made possible thanks to the generous contribution of the Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea del Ministero Italiano della Cultura, in collaboration with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Montréal and Brain Repair and Integrative Neuroscience Program (BRaIN) – Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre.
Thanks to Fondazione Guido Molinari, Quebec Foundation for the Blinds, Italy Embassy in Ottawa; MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia di Torino and Museo MACTE di Termoli for their support.
Reservation no longer available
