Vincenzo Marsiglia's #unritrattoperunirci moves from social media to public video projections

Italian artist Vincenzo Marsiglia (born 1972 in Belvedere Marittimo) has transformed his viral social media project #unritrattoperunirci into a public art initiative featuring video projections on landmark buildings. The project began during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, using Marsiglia's Interactive Star iPad app (developed since 2010) to turn participants' selfies into digital portraits. Over three months, more than 500 people from the art, culture, and music worlds, along with doctors and nurses, contributed. The first projection took place at Palazzo del Comune in Cremona. Upcoming projections include Palazzo Bevilacqua Ariosti during ArteFiera in Bologna (postponed to May due to COVID-19) and in Paris in spring. The project is supported by VAR Group, a digital security company, and Fondazione Luca e Katia Tomassini, founded by Luca Tomassini, a pioneer of Italian mobile telephony. Curators Laetitia Florescu and Julie Fazio collaborated on the project. The initiative aims to create a virtual community that becomes more real through in-person gatherings at projection sites.