Federica Mambrini and Valeria Simonini at Foto Forum

Presented independently on the two gallery floors, both exhibitions focus on the relationship between people and the human-made environments they inhabit.

Overview

Federica Mambrini presents, on the lower floor, the extended version of L’albergo Della Lontananza / Far Far Stay. The project was first shown to the public in 2024 with exhibitions at the Museo de Historia Natural and Parque Cultural de Valparaíso in Chile, as well as at Spazio Mutty in Castiglione delle Stiviere (MN), Italy. In this phase, it was supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture as part of the 12th edition of the Italian Council (Talent Development section) and exhibited. For the Foto Forum exhibition, Mambrini presents an enriched version including over one hundred photographs, two new installation interventions, and a display specifically designed for the occasion.

One Like Many Others. A Visual Journey Through Railwaymen’s Homes is a photographic installation based on Valeria Simonini’s historical and visual research, which recounts the serial architecture of the South Tyrolean railway workers’ houses. The project was launched in 2023 as part of Bolzanism POP UP, an artistic residency promoted by Bolzanism Museum – the first museum dedicated to the popular architecture of Bolzano and the stories of those who live there. Photographer Luca Matassoni collaborated on the territorial narrative project. The images, presented on the ground floor of Foto Forum, recount the journey along the Bolzano–Brenner railway line in search of the railway workers’ houses designed by architect Angiolo Mazzoni in the 1930s as part of a public housing plan for Italian State Railway personnel. The exploration starts and ends in the Piani district of Bolzano, which was also part of the urban design that envisaged the repetition, at almost every railway stop in South Tyrol, of a standardised housing model – available in three types – designed by the then chief engineer for the State Railways. Twenty-three stops near active and disused railway stations to find the railway workers’ houses and observe how these spaces – designed in series – have been transformed over time through the use and care of the people who live in them. Almost a century later, One like many others recounts the tension that permeates these places: on the one hand, the repetitiveness of the buildings, the result of a dirigiste approach to urban design; on the other, the domestic strategies of personalisation employed by the people who live there.