Episode 1: Sicily Season Premiere
Episode 1 Sicily Season Premiere
Season 3 Sicily
View of Linguaglossa and Mt Etna in Sicily, Italy. Image courtesy: Riley Clements
Welcome to the first episode of Art Destinations Sicily.
This season, we journey through Sicily — an island shaped by layers of myth, volcanic earth, and cultural inheritance. It's a place where landscape and history actively shape how artists think, work, and create.
Alfio Puglisi, co-producer of this podcast and director of the Sicily Artist-in-Residence Program (SARP) has curated this season’s line-up — artists and curators whose work speaks deeply to the idea of place.
You’ll hear from:
Elisa Giardina Papa, who featured in the main exhibition of the 2022 Venice Biennale, curated by Cecilia Alemani,
Vito Planeta, cultural leader and winemaker behind Planeta Wines,
Irene Coppola, Palermo-based artist and co-founder of Spaziomateria,
Claudio Gulli, director of Palazzo Butera and former art historian at the Louvre,
as well as artists Hanna Burkart, Aurora Passero, Francesco Vullo, and Alessandro Giorgi — each bringing their own way of working with land, memory, and material.
Throughout the season, four big ideas keep surfacing:
Collaborating with Place
Sicily — and especially Mount Etna — doesn’t sit quietly in the background. Its geology, weather, and mythology become part of the creative process. Artists aren’t just responding to place — they’re working with it.
Reimagining Cultural Identity
From folklore and religion to personal memory and ancestral ties, artists in this season explore what it means to come from, return to, or be shaped by Sicily. The result is a layered, often surprising rethinking of identity.
A Return to Materiality
There’s a strong focus on materials: volcanic stone, natural pigment, handwoven textiles. These aren’t just tools — they carry stories, local knowledge, and a connection to time and place that grounds each artwork.
Peripheral Networks and Global Dialogue
Sicily might seem far from the art world’s major centres, but that’s part of its strength. Through platforms like SARP, the island becomes a node in a wider network — where intimacy, exchange, and slower modes of making reshape how we think about centre and edge.
This season shows us that working from the edge — whether geographically or culturally — opens up new ways of thinking about art, place, and belonging. In Sicily, the island isn’t just where artists make work. It’s part of how they think.
We’re so glad to have you with us. Subscribe on your favourite podcast platform, follow us on Instagram @artdestinations.podcast, and join us as we explore Sicily — one conversation at a time.
