Vernissage:
Saturday, 11 April, 11 am

Exhibition duration: 11.04.–28.05.2026
Opening hours:
Thursdays: 9.00-12.00 + 15.00-17.00

We are also happy to open the exhibition upon request at:lokal@basis.space

Quote: “Photography can be an act of shared trust, a place where identity and relationship are inseparable dimensions of a single gesture of revelation and protection of the other and, only thus, of the self.” Samira Mosca

Don’t shoot, come in!, the first exhibition of the 2026 season of lasecondaluna, hosted at the Laives Gallery from 21.02 to 14.03.2026, addresses the theme of intimacy in relationships through the works of Anie Maki (Anna Michelotti, Bolzano, 1998) and Jacopo Noera (Modena, 1991), two young artists who transform photography from a device of “capture” to a space of contact and “co-creation”. In an era dominated by the snapshot image, both advocate for slowness, reciprocity, and care as the foundations of their practice: not to extract, but to build together. The camera is no longer a weapon (from the English verb to shoot, synonymous with firing), but rather a diaphragm of presence: a place where photographer and subject meet, recognise each other, and expose themselves to a shared vulnerability. Intimacy is not passive documentation, but a relational process: a long time made of listening, trust, and the accumulation of traces. Intimacy, relationship, and co-creation are therefore three of the key words that accompany the exhibition path: to recognise each other, Anie Maki and Noera suggest, means first and foremost to recognise the person in front of you. In this perspective, photography becomes an act of care and responsibility. The exhibition will conclude with a final relational event: a shared aperitif that, through taste, touch, and smell, extends the reflection on intimacy beyond the gaze, transforming the relationship into a multisensory experience. At the end of this brochure, you will find the information on the entire collateral programme.

ANIE MAKI
Anie Maki (Anna Michelotti, 1998) was born and raised in South Tyrol, studied Communication and Media Sciences in Bologna, and graduated in Photography at Spazio Labò. She collaborates with FotoForum Bolzano, Lungomare, and the publishing house Rorhof. Her practice focuses on family, care, memory, and human relationships, working extensively with the archive from a psychological perspective. In 2024, she published her first photographic book, Marinella, with Lotta Books. Her works are not limited to photography but construct constellations of fragments, images, objects, and texts, in which identity emerges through accumulation and layering.

Marinella (2019–24) is not just a photographic project, but a relationship that lasted five years, built over time with patience, listening, and presence. Anie Maki meets Marinella, her neighbour, when she moves to Bologna: from that moment, a dialogue begins to grow slowly, made up of visits, everyday gestures, confidences, and silences. Photography is never an isolated act, but a trace within a broader emotional archive, which includes objects, notes, memories, and small fragments of life. The images do not seek a definitive representation of the person, but instead provide a layered, fragile, and evolving presence. Marinella is not “portrayed”: she is the “co-author” of her own story. Time is the central element of the work: there is no privileged moment, but a constellation of moments that hold together like in an open diary.

The first incarnation is the hardest (2019-) is a fragmented visual diary, a collection of gestures, relationships, friendships, solitude, and closeness. There is no central image: meaning emerges in the accumulation, in the repetition, in the coexistence of different moments. Each photograph is like an intimate page of daily life, gaining significance only alongside the others, creating a constellation of personal relationships. Identity, here, is never stable: it is a process of transformation that builds over time and through the presence of the person portrayed. The first “incarnation” referred to in the title is synonymous with love and recognition: the photograph thus transforms into an act of care in the form of attention, a small revolution. The artist recounts: “it’s as if you took the time to fold the clothes in the wardrobe of every person you photograph.”

In Maida/Milk, weight, gravity (2016) Anie Maki reconstructs a family narrative that simultaneously hides and reveals deep psychological dynamics. The project arises from the relationship with the artist's grandmother and develops as a research into genealogical time, the inheritance of trauma, and what is transmitted, often in silence, from generation to generation. At its core is the legend of a genetic depression that runs through the family history, marked by suicides and silences. Maki works with archival photographs, documents, collages, and writing, building a fragmented archive that combines historical research and personal elaboration. The traces left by ancestors, invisible yet recognisable as recurring patterns, re-emerge in the present. Family secrets, long kept as a form of protection, are shared and made visible. The project thus becomes an act of retroactive care, seeking to open a new understanding of the past and the present.


JACOPO NOERA
Jacopo Noera (1991) lives and works between Modena and Milan. In 2017, he dedicated himself to artistic research by enrolling in the Master's programme in Contemporary Image at FMAV (Modena). His practice explores the boundaries of human relationships, using the body as a language and transforming the portrait into a device for (self-)knowledge through the recognition of the other. He collaborates with various national and international brands, including Bvlgari, Blumarine, and Max Mara. In 2018, he founded muah! studio with Isabella Nardon. How am I supposed to be? (2019) is a collection of 25 shots: portraits of intimate friends. This work arises from a personal and radical question: how should I be? The portrait of the other thus transforms into an indirect self-portrait: a space for reflection on who we are and what we are asked to be. Noera photographs his closest friends, creating for each one an environment, a situation, a light that reflects what he feels and perceives. The images are staged, but infused with a strong component of emotional truth. Between spontaneity and construction, a fertile ambiguity is generated: gestures may seem affectionate, but also tense; closeness can hide fragility. The installation transforms the series into an archive of relationships, an emotional map made of bodies, gazes, and presences. Looking outside of himself, the artist seeks himself.

In For Your Good (2020), Noera explores the boundaries between love, power, and control within family relationships. The photographs are not just simple images: they become domestic objects, placed in containers and lids of food boxes. They are forms that protect, but at the same time close, preserve, and hold. The container becomes a metaphor for the relationship: what nourishes us can also imprison us. Bodies are often stripped of their identity, transformed into signs, into symbolic presences. Between irony and unease, the work stages the fragility of bonds and their ambivalence. Observe how the photographs are inserted into the container-objects. Think of something or someone that has “held” you within a relationship. Was it a protection or a limit? Or both? Now imagine opening that lid: what would come out? What would remain inside?
 
Relational Device (2017) is a paradoxical work that presents itself as an installative diptych: on one side, the photograph of a non-existent object, on the other, the mould that should produce it. The object is a balloon with two opposite openings, designed to be inflated by two people, together. The balloon thus becomes a symbolic space of relationship, which exists only in the encounter with the other and in the shared breath that transforms emptiness into presence. From this common action arises a fragile and interdependent balance, ephemeral like the air that sustains it. In the dialogue between image and mould, between reality and fiction, the work brings forth an open question: the other person is not only necessary to the relationship but the very condition of existence.

Duration of the exhibition: 11.04.–28.05.2026
Opening hours:
every Thursday: 9.00–12.00 and 15.00–17.00

The exhibition is also accessible upon request by writing to: lokal@basis.space