61st International Art Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia
THE FOREST — THE UNDERGROWTH
Michele Stanzione participates in the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, presented within the Equatorial Guinea Pavilion, The Forest – The Undergrowth, at Palazzo Donà dalle Rose in Venice.
The exhibition is curated by Joan Abelló and commissioned by Paulo Speller. Michele Stanzione is officially listed among the exhibiting artists of the Equatorial Guinea Pavilion by La Biennale di Venezia.
The 2026 edition of the Biennale Arte, titled In Minor Keys, brings together 100 National Participations and 31 Collateral Events. The Republic of Equatorial Guinea is among the countries participating for the first time in the Biennale Arte.
BOSCO SACRO
The invisible dimension of the forest
For the Venice exhibition, Michele Stanzione presents Bosco Sacro, a photographic research that investigates the relationship between nature, memory, spirituality and the invisible.
In Stanzione’s work, the forest is not merely a landscape.
It becomes a threshold.
A place suspended between the visible and the unseen, between external reality and the inner world.
Through black-and-white photography, the artist transforms the forest into a symbolic and psychological space. Forms, faces, textures and traces emerge from darkness, suggesting presences that seem to belong simultaneously to nature, memory and the human imagination.
The images do not seek to describe the forest.
They seek to reveal it.
The forest becomes an interior landscape — a place of silence, transformation and ancestral memory.
A place where the human being encounters a dimension that cannot be completely rationalised.
THE FOREST AS A THRESHOLD
The curatorial concept of The Forest – The Undergrowth considers the forest and its undergrowth as an archetype of the unconscious: a mysterious and unexplored dimension of the mind, and at the same time a space where the visible and invisible meet.
The official presentation of the Equatorial Guinea Pavilion describes the forest as a sacred place of spiritual elevation and as a symbol of the subtle relationship between humanity, nature and the cosmos. The exhibition invites visitors to experience the forest not simply as an image, but as a space to inhabit.
Within this conceptual framework, Bosco Sacro becomes part of a broader dialogue between contemporary art, nature, spirituality and the hidden dimensions of human experience.
Stanzione’s photographic language enters this dialogue through the essential vocabulary of black and white.
By removing colour, the artist reduces the image to light, shadow, form and presence.
The result is a visual language in which reality becomes ambiguous and the boundary between what is seen and what is perceived begins to dissolve.
PHOTOGRAPHY AS A LANGUAGE OF THE INVISIBLE
Throughout his artistic practice, Michele Stanzione has used photography to investigate the inner dimensions of the human being.
His images explore identity, memory, transformation, spirituality and the relationship between the body and the surrounding environment.
In Bosco Sacro, this research expands from the human figure toward nature itself.
The forest becomes a mirror of the human interior.
Its darkness becomes memory.
Its silence becomes contemplation.
Its hidden forms become fragments of an unseen reality.
Photography therefore becomes more than a recording device.
It becomes an instrument of investigation.
An attempt to make visible what normally remains invisible.
THE EQUATORIAL GUINEA PAVILION
THE FOREST — THE UNDERGROWTH
The Equatorial Guinea Pavilion brings together artists from different geographical and cultural backgrounds around the symbolic dimension of the forest.
The official curatorial statement describes the forest as a space of mystery, spiritual elevation and dialogue between the visible and invisible, between nature and culture, and between what is controlled and what escapes human order.
Michele Stanzione’s participation contributes a photographic perspective to this international dialogue.
His work enters the exhibition through a language based on silence, shadow and symbolic transformation.
Within the forest, the image becomes a threshold.
And the threshold becomes an invitation to look beyond what is immediately visible.
MICHELE STANZIONE
Michele Stanzione is an Italian contemporary visual artist and photographer born in Benevento in 1981.
His artistic research is centred on the relationship between the visible and invisible, with particular attention to identity, memory, spirituality, nature and the human condition.
Working predominantly in black and white, he has developed a personal visual language in which photography becomes a tool for introspection and symbolic investigation.
His work has been presented in exhibitions and international art projects in Italy, Europe and Asia.
His participation in the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2026 represents a significant stage in this ongoing research, bringing Bosco Sacro into an international context of contemporary artistic dialogue.
EXHIBITION INFORMATION
61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2026
Exhibition:
The Forest – The Undergrowth
Artist:
Michele Stanzione
Project:
Bosco Sacro
Pavilion:
Republic of Equatorial Guinea
Curator:
Joan Abelló
Commissioner:
Paulo Speller
Venue:
Palazzo Donà dalle Rose
Cannaregio 5038 / 5101
Venice, Italy
Dates:
9 May — 22 November 2026
Admission:
Free entrance