Bracciano Art Week: First Edition Explores Contamination and Identity

The first edition of Bracciano Art Week (BAW), titled 'Contemporary Bloom', runs from May 15 to 18, 2025, transforming the historic center of Bracciano into a diffused museum. Curated by Maria Ludmilla Pustka and Massimiliano Ionta, the event features painting, sculpture, digital and immersive works, plus collateral programs in music, cinema, and literature. Cecilia Sodano, director of the Museo Civico di Bracciano and organizing committee member, emphasizes the key words 'contamination' and 'identity'. Notable works include Maix Mayer's four-channel video installation 'Barosphere_1' at the Complesso di S. Maria Novella, curated by Tanja Lelgemann, exploring the relationship between Italian cinema (especially Antonioni) and modernist architecture. Point Zero Collective presents the immersive installation 'Beyond the light' investigating the cosmos. Peter Flaccus shows 'Encaustic improvisations'. Pietro Simonelli installs glazed ceramic animals on the cathedral steps. Emiliano Zucchini's 'Void Cube' is a sound piece at Opus laboratory. Flavia Martinelli's 'Pensieri Appesi' are embroidered cotton sheets with verses along via del Pescino. B.Zarro presents 'Turista per…Casa'. The event is organized with contributions from multiple local actors. The first edition shows room for improvement in artistic proposals and presentation standards, and the religious connotation of the event, mostly held in sacred spaces with devotional works, could have been more explicitly stated.