From 19 September 2025 to 1 March 2026 at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere

The Intangible Bonds in Festive Landscapes visual documentation project was conceived and launched by the Central Institute for Intangible Heritage (ICPI) working in collaboration with Strategia Fotografia 2022, an initiative promoted by the General Directorate of Contemporary Creativity, under the aegis of the Italian Ministry of Culture. The project was made possible thanks to the participation of a wide range of individuals, social groups, institutions, and local associations.

The research carried out as part of the project gave rise to the photography exhibition Intangible Bonds, Twenty-eight Festive Landscapes. The exhibition presents a contemporary and authorial interpretation of festivities, exploring their role in shaping festive landscapes. This reportage photography documents living heritage – intangible cultural legacies that are continuously recreated and regenerated – highlighting the multiplicity of social practices, their complexity, and their potential for research. The works on display explore festivities as spaces of exchange and interrelation between human beings and natural environments, and between people and symbols, transforming places into spaces of life and highlighting the deep relationship between individuals and territory.

The 28 photographic reportages on display were created by Marina Berardi, Barbara Di Maio, Francesco Faraci, Francesco Francaviglia and Fausto Podavini, photographers attuned to ethnographic research and experimentation with novel visual languages. The exhibition is promoted by Roma Capitale and the project was coordinated in collaboration with ICPI.

The exhibition catalogue collects images from the reportages, and presents anthropological reflections arising from the research. The exhibition space is also the hub for a series of meetings, guided tours and study days, including the presentation of the catalogue itself (Link to the catalogue).

These participatory events sustain the vitality of the project, bringing the anthropologists, photographers, scholars, and the participants of the festivities themselves back together. The project offers space for ongoing dialogue, where the intangible bonds between people and landscapes continue to be explored, safeguarded and valued.

List of celebrations in the exhibition

The texts in this section were edited by Omerita Ranalli