Milan between images and material: Giovanna Silva’s exhibition tells The latest summer in the city

Editorial Staff
Mar 13
3 min read

Updated: Mar 15

Photography and material exploration come together in an exhibition project that invites viewers to reinterpret the urban landscape with fresh eyes, exploring architectural layers, visual perceptions, and contemporary impressions.

A spacious, well-lit art gallery with white walls and a skylight ceiling. Minimalist framed artwork is evenly spaced on the walls, creating a serene atmosphere. — *Giovanna Silva. L’ultima estate in città,* installation view at Fondazione Officine Saffi. Courtesy Fondazione Officine Saffi and the artist; ph. Alessandra Vinci

Milan is a city that reveals itself slowly. By simply changing your perspective, pausing on a facade, at an intersection of lines, or on a reflective surface, you realize how the urban landscape is made of layers, contrasts, and memories.

It is from this careful observation that L’ultima estate in città (The latest summer in the city), the new solo exhibition by Giovanna Silva, emerges, on view from March 11 to April 2, 2026, at Fondazione Officine Saffi. The project offers a fresh perspective on the city through images suspended between recognizability and abstraction, creating a visual journey that can surprise even those who traverse Milan every day.

A new perception of urban space

Silva’s photographs do not simply document Milanese architecture: they capture its fragments, unexpected geometries, and the relationships between buildings and surfaces. The result is a city that feels familiar yet simultaneously distant, almost mental, where details play a central role in shaping the viewer’s gaze.

Through precise framing and minimalist compositions, the artist presents an urban landscape in constant motion, shaped by historical layers and contemporary transformations. Milan thus becomes a territory to explore visually, rather than merely to recognize.

A minimalist gallery wall displays five framed photographs of urban architecture against a clean white background, under industrial ceiling piping.

Two framed photos: Left shows green building with many windows in a dark green frame. Right depicts a corridor with colorful columns in a pale pink frame. — Giovanna Silva, *Milano,* 2025. Courtesy Fondazione Officine Saffi and Giovanna Silva; ph Alessandra Vinci

The dialogue between photography and ceramics

A distinctive feature of the exhibition is the collaboration with Officine Saffi Lab, a workshop dedicated to experimentation with ceramic materials.

For each photograph, a handcrafted frame was designed, conceived not just as a support but as an integral part of the artwork. The presence of ceramic introduces a tactile and physical dimension that alters the perception of the images, creating an exhibition rhythm in which object and photograph mutually influence each other.

This dialogue between the photographic surface and three-dimensional material opens up new ways of perceiving urban space, transforming the exhibition into a visual and sensory experience.

Milan as an architectural laboratory

In the essay accompanying the exhibition, architect Pier Paolo Tamburelli describes Milan as a city built through accumulation, where buildings from different eras and styles coexist in an often surprising balance.

Silva’s photographs capture precisely this complexity: skyscrapers and historic buildings, 19th-century ornamentation and modern surfaces interact to create new visual narratives. The city appears as a layered organism, where both order and irregularity are the result of human intervention.

Framed photos on a wall: Left shows a stadium's concrete curves; right displays a mix of a classical building and modern skyscraper. Architectural contrast. — Giovanna Silva, *Milano,* 2025. Courtesy Fondazione Officine Saffi and Giovanna Silva; ph Alessandra Vinci

An invitation to see Milan through a different lens

L’ultima estate in città thus becomes an opportunity to slow down and notice what often goes unnoticed in everyday life. The exhibition suggests that the urban landscape is never fixed, but is continuously shaped through observation, memory, and interpretation.

At Fondazione Officine Saffi, contemporary photography and artisanal tradition come together to offer a portrayal of the city that is open, dynamic, and deeply connected to the present.