ITACA

ITACA
Souvenirs and Travel Notes of Captain Angel Ventura de Aguadulce and Duchess Felicia Schirò Filangeri

Installations and sculptures
by Nino Ventura
curated by Gina Ingrassia
5 December 2025 | 22 February 2026
Pinacoteca Civica di Follonica
Piazza del Popolo 1, Follonica (GR)

A seven-stage sea voyage toward a legendary Ithaca, face-to-face with the vastness and depth of a Mediterranean that is a crossroads of cultures and religions, legends and memories, hopes and utopias that intertwine in an imaginary narrative woven from objects and words. “ITACA. Souvenirs and Travel Notes of Captain Angel Ventura de Aguadulce and Duchess Felicia Schirò Filangeri,” an unprecedented exhibition by artist Nino Ventura, will be displayed for the first time at the Pinacoteca Civica of Follonica from 5 December 2025 to 22 February 2026, organized by the Municipality of Follonica with the organizational support of Comediarting.

Entering the exhibition, curated by Gina Ingrassia, one steps into an extraordinary space inhabited by improbable creatures with ancient echoes, imaginary beings evoking odyssean legends and fantastical places, archetypes and symbols of a cyclical journey embracing past and present. Terracotta and bronze sculptures, canopic and apothecary vases, masks and deities come to life; the two adventurous protagonists with resounding names burst out from the boundaries of a painted canvas, and every object becomes animated, gaining density and presence through the artist’s vital breath. In that undefinable sea — a mixture of races and cultures — the stage of art opens up.

“Ithaca is not a conventional exhibition; it is a sensory and intellectual experience that encourages visitors to cross the waters of life, to dive into their depths, and to be captured by a shared, timeless story in order to rediscover the value of return, the meaning of belonging and searching, in the waters of a sea that never stops telling its tale. Ithaca is a journey that leads straight to the heart of Nino Ventura’s production, a metaphor for his artistic pursuit — one of exploration and immersion in matter and its infinite potential for shaping — and, in parallel, a reflection on art, its possibilities and manifestations, carried out with the depth and playful, picaresque lightness that distinguish the artist,” explains curator Gina Ingrassia.

The journey proposed by the artist is a metaphor for existence — a path spanning years toward that land of return, discovery, and hope that appears like a mirage on the horizon, while also symbolizing ceaseless searching, the desire for landfall in a sea of contradictions and millennial stories. An island, Ithaca, that need not necessarily be reached but approached, desired — a symbol of a voyage where what matters is not the destination but the encounters along the way. Nino Ventura’s works thus become a bridge between past and present, between myth and reality, inviting everyone to take part in this visionary adventure in which all are protagonists — “No one,” and each one of us. Closing the great parade are the evocative lighthouse-men, emblems of light and hope, a safe harbor in a sea of uncertainty.

“Ithaca is the imaginary journey of two people in love through a mysterious and fantastic Mediterranean, born from the emotion of the countless stories my maternal grandmother told us as children, in the evening, seated at the foot of Mount Etna. Travel and craftsmanship are the elements that give shape to this exhibition. Memories, objects, souvenirs that bear witness to this fantastic journey and the stories lived by the protagonists at every stopover. The choice of materials and even the very form of the sculptures in the installation are closely linked to these physical places. They are not archaeological finds but objects that belong to us and are therefore familiar,” says Nino Ventura.

The artist recounts a new Mediterranean story: that of Duchess Felicia Schirò Filangeri, who in 1639, while walking on the beach of Mondello, found a bottle containing a small sheet of paper. That bottle and its message would change her life. Not even Captain Angel Ventura de Aguadulce could have imagined that the message he entrusted to a bottle — “Come with me, let’s leave. Let’s go where the wave takes us, to see our Sea up close” — would give rise to that long journey across the Mediterranean. No one knows how the two managed to meet, but legend has it that a few months later the Captain arrived in Palermo to embark the Duchess and set off on that voyage. They are said to have returned thirty-six years later. Some say this journey was possible because both of them saw life through the eyes of the fish that inhabit the sea.

“We all know Ithaca, the island abandoned by Ulysses, with Penelope, Telemachus, and the dog Argos waiting for him for twenty years. References that are both distant and close to Nino Ventura’s work which, like a modern Homer, tells a new story not only through words but also with raw matter transformed into sculpture, shaping both clay and poetry. And so we meet two new characters: he, a Spaniard from Aguadulce in Almeria; she, an eighteen-year-old duchess from Palermo. A thirty-six-year journey of love across the Mediterranean, just like the most famous hero. Let us be carried away by the magic of this new adventure, where encounters become sculptures — sometimes divine, sometimes healing, or precious objects to bring home. Because sooner or later, nostalgia for dry land brings us back and helps us understand that every journey is, above all, a journey within ourselves,” says Stefania Turini, Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Follonica.

The exhibition inauguration will take place on Friday 5 December at 5:00 PM, in the presence of artist Nino Ventura and Councillor for Culture Stefania Turini.

Title: ITACA
Artist: Nino Ventura
Curator: Gina Ingrassia
Organization: Municipality of Follonica with the organizational support of Comediarting

When: 5 December 2025 – 22 February 2026
Opening: Friday 5 December, 5:00 PM
Where: Pinacoteca Civica di Follonica, Piazza del Popolo 1, Follonica (GR)
Free admission
Opening hours: Daily, holidays included, Tuesday to Sunday from 3:30 PM to 7:00 PM
(Closed 25 December)

Contacts:
0566.59027 (Magma Museum)
0566.59246 (Library)

www.comune.follonica.gr.it
www.magmafollonica.it
cultura@comune.follonica.gr.it
frontofficemagma@comune.follonica.gr.it

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