Due to an event, the West Wing (rooms 8-13) of the Gallery of Ancient Art and the Hall of Parliament of Friuli on the main floor of Castle of Udine will close on Wednesday, 30 April 2026 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

On that time slot, admissions to the Museums of the Castle of Udine will be at a reduced price (5 euros), except for those free of charge: take a look at our price list!

ULDERICA DA POZZO

THE TORN DAYS

The void of time in prison.

Images of the ex-feminist house in via Spalato

Ulderica Da Pozzo's photographic project stems from a civil and human commitment that began in 2021, when, in her role as Guarantor for persons deprived of their liberty for the Municipality of Udine, she set herself the ambitious goal of radically changing the face of the via Spalato prison. The underlying idea was that restoring and renovating a number of spaces, left unused for decades, could reshape the daily lives of inmates. It aimed to transform the physical environment so as to give concrete effect to the principles of dignity and to Article 27 of the Constitution, which regards punishment as a process aimed at social reintegration. It was a matter of proposing a model of reflection that was not abstract but firmly grounded in reality, capable of overcoming scepticism through the tangibility of change.

Today, the first milestones of this journey are visible: the work on the first phase, which saw the inauguration of the new semi--custodial unit in January 2024 and of the former women's wing in July 2025, is now complete. These spaces, which have hosted renewed activities since January 2026, are complemented by the completion of the second phase, which will house a theatre and family visiting rooms - crucial places for maintaining emotional ties. However, bearing witness to the transformation of these disused spaces, which hold the traces of many past lives, and conveying the value of their regeneration is no simple task. The risk was the complexity of lived experience would be oversimplified, by setting cramped spaces against more welcoming ones in an overly didactic way.

To avoid this simplification and to acknowledge the layering of lives bound up with the past, the choice fell on Ulderica Da Pozzo, a highly sensitive photographer who has for many years been exploring “abandoned rooms” and the memories they contain. Entering the cells of the former women's section for the first time in 2021, the artist moved “on tiptoe”, with a sense of respect that transcends mere photographic documentation. She captured the soul of those spaces, charged layered memory, inviting the viewer to reflect on the human condition and on the profound impact that environment has on the individual.

Through her lens, Ulderica Da Pozzo enters into a dialogue with the corridors and cells, reading the traces of time and transforming places of confinement into spaces of pure reflection. With skilful use of light, the photographs capture details charged with emotional power: tears in the wallpaper, engraved phrases, drawings and the different layers of paint that, like geological sediments, tell the story of the passing days. In these images, presences turn into silent absences, evoking the stories of those who have passed through these places. The idea emerges forcefully of a time that transforms everything outside, yet for those who are imprisoned seems to stand still between cold walls, where only the rips in the surface ultimately reveal the fragility of the soul.

Five years later, in 2026, the photographer returned to the same places, finding them profoundly changed, almost unrecognisable and no longer connected to the people she had come to know through the traces of the past. Faced with this new environment, which now offers opportunities for growth and entirely new sensations, the artist found herself almost disoriented, bearing witness to a radically different way of life. The exhibition therefore compares brings two moments in time and two perspectives into dialogue. While the work on the past is essential to preserve the traces of those who lived in these spaces, the account of the current transformation highlights how redevelopment can change the outlook of those who remain. Where once time seemed slow and almost motionless, today the gaze is met by maps and works exploring emotions, symbols of a new beginning and of a renewed centrality of human relationships.

Guido Guidi (Cesena, 1941) studied at the University Institute of Architecture and the Advanced Course in Industrial Design in Venice in the 1960s, where he was a student of Italo Zannier, among others. Active in photographic research since 1969, he has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad and is recognised as one of the leading protagonists of international photography.

A long-time lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna and the Faculty of Design and Art at the Iuav University of Venice, Guidi has long had a connection with Friuli Venezia Giulia. Since 1985, upon request of the CRAF in Spilimbergo and other institutions in the region, he has held numerous teaching workshops and created a wide range of photography projects related to the contemporary landscape. Awarded the FVG Photography Prize in 1988, he has twice won the Hemingway Prize in Lignano Sabbiadoro (in 2014 and 2020). His first retrospective volume, Varianti (Variants), was published in 1995 by Arti Grafiche Friulane.

Ten years after the publication of Guardando a Est (Looking East), a book edited by Walter Liva that retraced the fourteen stops on this thirty-year exploration of the territory, the curators collaborated with the photographer, the Guidi Archive in Cesena and the CRAF Archive to propose a new reading of photographic series and sequences that are still partially unpublished.

‘I am the first viewer of what I do,’ says Guidi, returning to the places he photographed with the eyes of memory, proposing the route you will see in this exhibition. The first series on Trieste in 1985 was followed by works realised during workshops held with young people in Spilimbergo in 1991, 1994, 1995 and in 1997 (in dialogue with the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini); in Lestans in 1992 and 1998; in Venzone in 1996, twenty years after the earthquake; in Pielungo and Pinzano in 1999. At the invitation of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Trieste, Guidi researched, much like his other work, physically and mentally ‘out-of-place’ perspectives in the ATER neighborhoods in Udine in 1999 and in Trieste in 2002. In 2004, he tackled the theme of the transformation of the border in Gorizia, and in 2014, he focused on San Vito al Tagliamento and Lignano Sabbiadoro.

This journey of landscapes and details testifies to the continuous renewal of the visual language of Guidi, who over time has created an unprecedented and complex iconography of our contemporary landscape. In these images, places offer themselves as rich palimpsests of signs and untold stories, of ambitious projects and everyday gestures, of ‘high’ cultures and ‘low’ customs. It is important to recognise the value of ‘anythingness’ that Guidi observes; to walk through the ‘cracks’ that open up between things, to work in the uncertain ‘margins’ that separate and unite what we know or think we know. In these photographs, the landscape ultimately becomes a pulsating and enigmatic subject, a presence that ideally returns our gaze, and in doing so questions our capacity for care and understanding.