When Architecture Remembers

Recently, Roberta Toscano shared with me details surrounding her current curatorial project Natalina and the Others, taking place from May 5th–15th, 2026 inside the former Air-Raid Shelter of Piazza Risorgimento in Turin, Italy, as part of the festival Peace, Freedom and Resistance — War and Peace. Organized in collaboration with ANPI Martinetto and the 4th District of the City of Turin, the exhibition brings together contemporary artists in reflection on the violence of war through the language of contemporary art.

As both an artist and curator, Roberta spoke deeply about her belief in curating as an act of civic engagement — a way of transforming historical memory into contemporary dialogue through artistic experience. Reading about the exhibition, and seeing the images of the shelter itself, I found myself deeply moved by the project’s sensitivity to place, history, and collective human experience.

What continues to stay with me about Natalina and the Others is not simply the exhibition itself, but the curatorial position from which it emerges. Set within a former WWII air-raid shelter, the project moves beyond the conventions of the white cube and into something far more immersive, psychological, and historically charged.

The shelter is not merely a backdrop for the artworks. It is an active presence — a site shaped by fear, protection, waiting, survival, and memory. Before a single artwork is encountered, the architecture already speaks. In this way, the exhibition becomes deeply site-specific, allowing history, space, and contemporary artistic expression to exist in direct conversation with one another.

At the center of the exhibition is the story of Natalina Monteu Saulat, a young woman deported during the Nazi occupation, whose experience becomes both historical testimony and symbolic thread throughout the project. Based on the historical reconstruction Natalina. A Short Story by Marino Tarizzo, President of ANPI Pont Canavese, the exhibition traces Natalina’s deportation from Turin’s “Le Nuove” prison to Bolzano and ultimately Ravensbrück, where she endured torture and abuse. Yet the exhibition does not approach memory as something distant or fixed in the past. Through sculpture, installation, video, and figurative works, curators Roberta Toscano and Marco Rabino expand the dialogue into a contemporary reflection on violence, imprisonment, resilience, and the fragility of human freedom.

What I find especially meaningful is Roberta Toscano’s understanding of curating as an act of civic engagement. In speaking with her, she described a long-standing commitment to “giving voice to the voiceless” through contemporary art. This sensibility can be deeply felt throughout the exhibition.

I find myself increasingly drawn toward projects that consider the emotional and psychological resonance of place itself. Certain works ask for more than clean walls and controlled lighting. They ask to exist within spaces that extend their meaning — environments marked by history, silence, tension, vulnerability, or collective memory.

Perhaps this is also a quiet plea: for curators, institutions, and independent spaces to continue considering how art changes when removed from neutral environments and placed into locations carrying their own lived histories. Not every exhibition belongs inside a white cube. Some exhibitions require spaces where architecture, atmosphere, memory, and artwork become inseparable.

In spaces like this, art is no longer simply viewed.

It is encountered.

NATALINA AND OTHERS                                                                                                                                       

Contemporary Art Collective Exhibition

Curated by Roberta Toscano and Marco Rabino

Part of the Festival "Peace, Freedom and Resistance – War and Peace" May 5th – 15th, 2026 | Turin, Italy

From May 5th to 15th in Turin, the Air-raid Shelter of Piazza Risorgimento (Museo Diffuso della Resistenza), in collaboration with ANPI Martinetto and the 4th District of the City of Turin, will host an exhibition project dedicated to the theme of war violence, interpreted through the language of contemporary art.

 ARTists featured in the exhibition:

Elizabeth Aro

Enrica Benedetto

Paola Bisio

Romano Carboni

Cinzia Ceccarelli

Francesca Conchieri

Mauro Cossu

Amalia De Bernardis

Nicoletta Feroleto

Laura Fortin

Riccardo Garolla

Anna Gasparini

Donatella Giagnacovo

Oona Hyland

Caterina Luciano

Franco Marchi

Nadia Menegon

Pablo Mesa Capella

Raffaele Palma

Angelo Pantaleo

Gigi Piana

Giuliana Pugliese

Marco Rabino

Silvia Raffaelli

Armando Riva

Concha Ros

Gerardo Rosato

Marco Scarcella

Marino Tarizzo

Togaci

Roberta Toscano

Flavio Ullucci

Paola Zorzi

photo credit: roberta toscano