Inhabit the present
Slow down through the rooms of Palazzo Mora
Every day, life moves faster than we realise, and we move with it, almost without noticing. The feeling of being behind, of never having enough time, pushes us to obsess over a future defined more by efficiency and external expectations than by what we actually want. In the rush, the present slips by: the small things, the quiet moments, the question of what we truly like or dislike. Several artists in Personal Structures – Confluences get to the heart of this, each from a different perspective.
G-sim Seyeon, Personal Structures 2026, Photo by Gemma Chinellato
One such example is G-sim Seyeon, with the paintings he seeks to "capture ephemeral moments in the continuous flow of time", instants so brief they appear and disappear before they can be named. Challenging personal experiences led him to recognise how differently we perceive past, present, and future, and how rarely we actually inhabit the now. His brushstrokes on the canvas make this visible: within a single flow of time, some moments compress and vanish, others linger and unfold slowly. The difference, he suggests, lies in whether we are looking.
John Nickerson, Personal Structures 2026, Photo by Gemma Chinellato
Where G-sim Seyeon chases the instant, John Nickerson stays with what it leaves behind. This American photographer said that “the thing is never just the thing”, that an image can always be seen as an abstraction of a deeper truth. And that’s exactly what happens in his photographs showcased at Palazzo Mora. Uninhabited interiors, rooms held in warm, unhurried light, record the shape human presence leaves behind. The body is absent, but its imprint is everywhere. In an age of constant documentation, self-presentation and performance, Nickerson's images offer something rarer: a space where no one is acting, and looking carefully is enough.
Adam Slama, Personal Structures 2026, Photo by Gemma Chinellato
Adam Slama, Personal Structures 2026, Photo by Gemma Chinellato
Photographer Adam Slama brings that same attention to the unseen and extends it into the wider world. His photographic works were created over years of immersion between people, place, and community, and each image focuses on everyday existence: who people are, how they live each day, and how they sustain each other. His installation Eat, Sleep, Repeat takes its name from the reductive loop often used to describe daily life, and then he quietly proves it wrong by showing his core idea: what it means to live, to belong, and to be human.
Simone Boon, Personal Structures 2026, Photo by Gemma Chinellato
Where Adam Slama looks outward at communities, another photographer turns the lens back on the individual. Simone Boon photographs human figures wrapped in coloured light, silks, and layered material: people who seem to emerge from the light or dissolve into it. That’s what seems to happen to our society. When life moves too fast, self-knowledge becomes one of the first things to slip away: we lose track not just of time but of ourselves. Quoting the artist, "at the speed of light, time dissolves”. The image captures what we rarely allow ourselves: a pause where perception, light, and time coexist, outside of urgency, an invitation to simply enjoy the moment.
Michelle Gialanze, Personal Structures 2026, Photo by Gemma Chinellato
Michelle Gialanze, Personal Structures 2026, Photo by Gemma Chinellato
If Boon questions who we are, artist Michelle Gialanze asks who we were, tracing that same blurred threshold between past and present. The structure of her work makes this distance visible: below, black-and-white photographs surface faintly through translucent material. Above, fragments of handwritten letters drift into view. The letters respond to a single question: What advice would you give to your past self? Many of them carry phrases such as "don't worry" or "don't be anxious about...". Words that feel immediately familiar, the kind most people wish they had heard sooner, before anxiety and worry consumed time that could have been spent simply living. One letter, perhaps, says it best: “think ahead, enjoy the present”, a reminder that the present is always there, waiting to be inhabited.
Gemma Chinellato