TRANS-HUMUS: Anatomies of the Province, solo exhibition by Luca Vernacchio, curated by Rossella Della Vecchia, opens at NITIDO-Exhibition & BodyArt on Saturday, May 16, 2026 at 7:00 PM. it will open on Saturday, May 16, 2026 at 7:00 PM.
Luca Vernacchio develops his photographic research within an eco-activist practice with a strong performative dimension, in which the landscape of the South of Italy is captured as an acted extension of the body. His action embedded in the photographic image investigates the reality of inland areas: rural, peripheral, and marginalised places marked by depopulation, abandonment, and environmental and infrastructural transformations that are gradually weakening their identity.
Thus, the exhibition title directly evokes the idea of a physical crossing - derived from the Latin etymology of trans, “to go beyond”, and humus, “soil” - inviting us to inhabit the ideological rupture of still (apparently) untouched territories, to question their contradictions and the resulting void. What emerges is an anthropological and “anatomical” documentation, in which the artist uses self-portraiture as a performative device aimed at an existential and contemporary mapping of the province, understood as a clue to a broader “geography of disenchantment”.
Within this analysis, the curatorial project TRANS-HUMUS presents nine selected photographs from the series Embrional Fields and Selva. In the first, the artist portrays himself in action among piles of waste, abandoned quarries, and bucolic wheat fields threatened by water scarcity or the monumental presence of wind turbines; while in the second, his performative intervention focuses on the use of recycled masks -created with Vito Chianca- staging a suspension of identity within the symbolic space of the untamed.
These are accompanied by three new monochrome works, anticipating a series still in formal development. Here, the gaze is directed toward a process of visual stratification in which Luca Vernacchio intervenes on his own silhouette, allowing an almost archetypal dimension to emerge, suspended between fading and residual presence against the backdrop of uninhabited spaces.
Finally, the screening of a concept video dedicated to the artist’s research, conceived with the curator’s consultancy and realised in collaboration with Felice Ciccone and composer Lillo Morreale.