Nicola Bertasi's Pandemic Postcards Bridge 1918 and COVID-19

Nicola Bertasi (Milan, 1983), great-nephew of photographer Lisetta Carmi, is featured in the group exhibition Civilization at Musei San Domenico in Forlì, Italy. The show, which started in Seoul in 2018 and traveled to Beijing, Auckland, Melbourne, and Marseille, presents over 300 works by 130 international photographers. Bertasi's series Pandemic Postcards, created during the first COVID-19 lockdown, is shown for the first time alongside the homonymous limited-edition publication (2021) curated by Valeria Ribaldi with graphic design by Francesca Todde. The project will next appear in The Pandemic Papers at Casa della Memoria in Milan (May 26–July 2, 2023). Bertasi sourced images from the US National Archives depicting the 1918 Spanish flu, combining them with screenshots of fashion-brand mask ads he received on Instagram. The ten postcards blend past and present, creating temporal confusion. The larger project The Pandemic Papers references the Pentagon Papers. Bertasi, a history graduate, worked as a photo assistant and projectionist in Paris (2008–2014), publishing in Le Monde, Mediapart, Libération, and Paris Match. His family includes artist Eugenio Carmi (grandfather), Kiky Vices Vinci (grandmother), and Lisetta Carmi (great-aunt), who co-founded the Galleria del Deposito in Boccadasse in the 1960s with artists like Max Bill, Piero Dorazio, and Victor Vasarely.