Locked in beauty

Italy’s museums are closed and deserted. What do these museums look like emptied of visitors? How do the artworks fare without those that appreciate them? We had the unique opportunity to be the only visitors allowed in some of the most iconic museums in Italy. We have tried to pull them out from the darkness they are in now and reinvent them trough light. The museums are haunted by the shadows of those that visited them.

Italy has an immense artistic and monumental heritage, which, through tourism, is one of the main economic resources of the country. The lockdown has brought the tourism industry to a complete and painful halt. In the coming months the museums will slowly start to reopen and we felt this could be a good way to tell the story of the museums in lockdown.

We traveled the country from north to south and had the privileged to enter classics like the
The National Archaeological Museum of Naples with its collections of Egyptian, Greek and ancient Roman art to lesser-known gems like the Galleria d’Italia in Vicenza. We spent hours in the shadow of Michelangelo's David at the Academia in Florence and let ourselves be illuminated by the whiteness of Canova’s marble.

Finding beauty in places that are now closed but will be accessible again and documenting what they look like devoid of visitors is a way to deal with the scope of this crisis and its implications. It is time to go back to contemplating art because it has an urgent message for all of us. Possibly without pushing through a crowd but still in the company of our renewed fellow humans.

(Project done in collaboration with photographer Paolo Woods)