CONFLUENCES
A photographic dialogue between two Sicilian artists
Two distinct artistic journeys find common ground through photography. Galleria Susanna Occhipinti, in collaboration with the Malta Society of Arts and thanks to Vivaio Ottone, presents Confluences, an exhibition bringing together the works of Giovanna Brogna Sonnino and Fabio Sgroi in the Basement Vaults of the Malta Society of Arts at Palazzo de La Salle, Valletta, from Thursday 17 September to Thursday 1 October 2026.
At the heart of the exhibition lies a dialogue between two Sicilian artists whose deeply personal practices have evolved through distinct experiences, languages, and modes of expression. On one side is the multifaceted work of Giovanna Brogna Sonnino, shaped through photography, writing, collage, assemblage, and the layering of memory. On the other is Fabio Sgroi, whose gaze is directed outward, towards the transformations of reality and the points of tension where fragility, marginality, and unexpected vitality emerge.
The exhibition’s title, Confluences, stems from the very nature of the gallery as both a place of passage and a space of encounter: a setting where artworks, artists, trajectories, and perspectives converge. Beyond its exhibition function, the gallery also retains its original architectural role as a transitional environment connecting adjoining spaces.
As Salvo Incardona, author of the exhibition’s critical essay, observes:
“On closer inspection, it is precisely a point of confluence, a crossroads where different movements, perspectives and intentions intersect: the visitor’s physical and mental journey, the historical trajectory of the artworks, and the curatorial path that situates them within the space. The gallery thus becomes a place where the transience of movement and the stillness of contemplation coexist, echo and define one another; or, borrowing a compelling insight from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a space that is not merely the milieu in which things are arranged, but the medium through which their arrangement becomes possible.”
Born in Catania in 1955, Giovanna Brogna Sonnino is a filmmaker and photographer whose practice extends across a much broader range of artistic forms. After graduating in Florence and moving to Rome, she worked for Italy’s public broadcaster RAI, directing films, documentaries and docu-films, several of which received awards both in Italy and abroad. Her official photographic debut came in 1986 with two exhibitions entitled Portraits, presented in Rome and Catania.
Malta already occupies a significant place within Brogna Sonnino’s personal and artistic history. One of the letters collected in her volume Letters to Dr. B. 1979–1987, dated 27 May 1982, was written in Malta, during the same stay in which she produced one of the photographs now included in the exhibition.
In the works presented in Confluences, images, texts and fragments drawn from different times and contexts enter into dialogue, giving shape to a compositional practice based on assemblage and on the possibility of generating new associations and alternative narrative paths.
Fabio Sgroi, born in Palermo in 1965, began working as a photographer in the second half of the 1980s. His collaboration with the daily newspaper L’Ora – his first and only experience in journalism – led him to document student movements, demonstrations, anti-war and anti-nuclear protests, as well as the most violent years of the Mafia war in Palermo.
His engagement with Sicily later expanded to include the documentation of popular and religious festivals, while his research gradually broadened to encompass southern Tunisia, the Americas, and Europe, particularly the countries of Central and Eastern Europe emerging from the collapse of totalitarian regimes. Moving progressively beyond the conventions of photojournalism, Sgroi has developed a coherent and distinctive visual language, attentive to identities in transformation and to the traces of fragility, hope, and change that shape both places and people.
The coexistence of the works of Giovanna Brogna Sonnino and Fabio Sgroi is therefore not intended to highlight formal similarities, but rather to reveal a shared ground upon which their distinct artistic trajectories unfold. Both artists operate on the threshold between what is visible and what remains concealed, between what reveals itself and what must be reconstructed.
As Salvo Incardona concludes:
“One traverses the world in search of its possible truths, while the other journeys inward to return an image of the world. It is precisely within these tensions and short circuits that the gallery finds its most authentic meaning, becoming the place where two divergent trajectories may indeed converge – not in order to resemble one another, but to reveal, each in its own way, the wavering intermittence of their respective ways of seeing.”
Salvo Incardona was born in Vittoria (Ragusa, Sicily) and studied at the Universities of Pisa and Augsburg (Germany). He is a philologist, essayist, translator, and curator.
Confluences opens on the 17th of September from 6 to 9pm and runs until the 1st of October, open Monday to Friday 10am to 12pm and 5pm to 8pm; Saturday 10am to 1pm and Sunday 5pm to 8pm, at the Basement Vaults of Society of Arts, Palazzo de La Salle, 219 Republic Street, Valletta, Malta. For more information email info@galleriasusannaocchipinti.it.
