EXHIBITION | What is Europe To You?

What Is Europe to You?

Lisa Borgiani

The European Photographic journey through images and voices

FEBRUARY 18 – MARCH 4

Opening: February 18 at 6:00 PM

Opening

On Wednesday, February 18 at 6:00 pm, we invite you to discover the exhibition What Is Europe to You?, the photographic project by Lisa Borgiani arriving in New York and creating a dialogue between faces, stories, and identities from Europe, America, and Ukraine.

During the opening, visitors will be invited to print their own portrait and share a personal reflection on what Europe represents to them.
Your contribution will become part of the exhibition, joining a collective narrative that crosses borders and cultures and continues to grow through the voices of those who experience it.

Evening Program
Opening remarks by Claudio Pagliara, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute of New York
Artist talk with Lisa Borgiani
Audience Q&A
Guided tour of the exhibition
Interactive activities
Reception to follow

The Exhibition

What Is Europe to You? February 18 March is an ongoing photographic project by Lisa Borgiani, launched in 2019 as a journey through faces and words. The artist asks each person she photographs a single question—“What is Europe to you?”—and collects the response in an essential form: a portrait and a short testimony, together with the subject’s name, location, and profession. Each encounter becomes a micro-narrative: intimate, immediate, and capable of revealing unexpected perceptions and emotions.

Over time, the project has grown into a collection of more than 1,500 portraits, created in various European cities—including Athens, Berlin, Paris, Budapest, and Kyiv—and more recently also in New York. At its core, the project remains focused on building a dialogue between images and words that crosses nationalities, generations, genders, experiences, and worldviews, offering an open space for expression and exchange.

In a historical moment marked by the war in Ukraine, the project also includes a collective chapter: in 2024, four Ukrainian photographers—members of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPP)—were invited to contribute portraits made in different cities across the country, following the same format (portrait plus response to the question). The exhibition presents selected works by Mykhaylo Palinchak, Olga Kovalova, Katya Moskalyuk, and Tim Melnikov.

On the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the exhibition proposes a living dialogue between European, Ukrainian, and American identities. New York—an emblematic metropolis of coexistence and cultural exchange—becomes the ideal setting to explore how the idea of Europe is perceived both from within and beyond its borders: not as an abstract definition, but as lived experience, memory, expectation, belonging, or distance.

Biography

Lisa Borgiani has been working for over fifteen years at the intersection of contemporary photography and installation, developing projects that engage directly with architecture and audiences. Her research combines image, space, and participation through works that are often modular and adaptable, designed to transform in relation to the exhibition context.

She has presented installations and photographic works in major public and cultural institutions internationally, including the Italian Embassy in Washington, D.C., the European Parliament, and several Italian Cultural Institutes. Since 2017, her installation Waves of Light has been permanently on view at San Raffaele Hospital in Milan.

Among her recent projects, The Unexpected Meets Rationalism was selected by the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and the Fondazione Comacina, leading to an artist residency at the Casa per Artisti on Isola Comacina, a building designed in 1939 by rationalist architect Pietro Lingeri. The work explores the relationship between modernist architecture and contemporary artistic practice through a flexible installation made of nets.

In 2019, architect Alessandro Colombo published the essay “The Rational Space of Art. Pietro Lingeri and the Installations of Lisa Borgiani” in the International Journal of Art and Art History.

Since 2019, she has been developing What Is Europe to You?, an ongoing photographic project that weaves together portraits and personal testimonies to create a visual and cultural dialogue between individuals and communities.