Borderline Modernity is a double exhibition by the Italian photographer Giovanna Silva, which explores modern and contemporary architecture and the cities of Sicily and Poland, two geographical areas at the edges of the European Union. These places, while different, are united by their position on the periphery of the EU and the commonly known cultural production centers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Both have a complex relationship with modernity: in Sicily, it is linked to uncontrolled urban and industrial development, often driven by speculation, while in Poland during the same period, architecture also served as a tool for politics connected to socialist ideology.

Silva’s photographic work offers an original and anti-monumental perspective on architecture, seeking the essence of spaces and buildings in seemingly insignificant details that reveal the real life unfolding within them. Silva has photographed modern architecture in several Italian and foreign cities, publishing numerous books on the subject. In the past four years, she has documented modern architecture in Sicily for various projects, many of which are unpublished. The landscape Silva captures includes bold and daring post-war architecture, sometimes silent, designed by both local and foreign architects, presenting an idea of modernity in Sicily that stands apart from the clichés linked to its Greek, Roman, Arab-Norman, or Baroque past.

The photographs of Sicily, exhibited at the Italian Institute of Culture in Warsaw, will be linked to a new photographic project dedicated to post-war architecture in five cities of Poland, specifically Warsaw, Wrocław, Kraków, Katowice, and Tychy. For this new project, Silva investigates socialist architecture built in Poland from the end of World War II until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. This creates an intriguing parallel between political history and architectural styles, from rationalism and socialist realism to postmodernism, narrating political periods from Stalinism to the rise of Solidarność.

The new photographic project on Poland will be displayed at the Fundacja Archeologia Fotografii, where Silva’s photographs will be juxtaposed with archival shots by Polish photographers Maria Chrząszczowa, Mariusz Hermanowicz, Tadeusz Sumiński, and Antoni Zdebiak, whose archives are kept by the foundation. The exhibition is curated by Pietro Airoldi and Izabela Anna Moren, from the :AFTER group dedicated to architecture in Sicily, and is co-hosted by the Italian Cultural Institute in Warsaw and the Fundacja Archeologia Fotografii.

The project is the winner of the public competition “Public Competition for the Promotion of Italian Photography Abroad” promoted by the Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture.