An issue that attempts to “Verify the existence of Messina” in the present, through narratives, images, essays and archives in dialogue across space and time.
Thursday, November 13, 2025, 5:00 p.m.
PRESENTATION OF THE THIRD ISSUE OF ISTITUTO SICILIA
IS is a research institute and publishing house for art, landscape, and epistemologies of the south, founded in 2021 in Sicily.
The third issue of SICILIA curated by Renato Leotta and Claudio Gulli is dedicated to the city of Messina, in the current context shaped by the approval of the Strait Bridge project and the resulting reconfiguration of the landscape–along with the symbolic dismissal of the island and the experience of landfall.
Among the contributions: a photographic dossier on CARLO SCARPA’s exhibition design for the show on ANTONELLO DA MESSINA; the travel diary of anthropologist FRANCO LA CECLA, tracing connections between the Mediterranean and Northern Europe along the routes of stockfish trade; a piece by MARTINA MOTTA on JEANETTE VILLEPREUX, inventor of the aquarium, featuring unpublished materials recovered from the archives of the NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM OF PARIS; an essay by CLAUDIO GULLI on the RUFFO collection and its dispersal across major museums worldwide—from REMBRANDT at the Metropolitan to Artemisia Gentileschi; a study of the Palazzata and the Theater of the Sea by the architecture studio EX.; a philosophical reflection by SANTI DI BELLA on Messina before and after the earthquake; an analysis by Mara Yvonne RAIA on the skies of Messina as depicted in paintings from the Accascina Regional Museum; and finally, a short essay by GIULIA LIARDO on the poetic work of Messina-born writer JOLANDA INSANA
RENATO LEOTTA, MARCO NICODEMO, AND CLAUDIO GULLI WILL BE PRESENT AT THE PRESENTATION.
At the end of the presentation, the magazine will only be available for purchase in cash.
