Don't Forget: photography to investigate Alzheimer's at Milan Diocesan Museum

From March 3 to May 3, 2026, the Carlo Maria Martini Diocesan Museum in Milan will host the exhibition DON’T FORGET. The Sacra Famiglia Experience and Alzheimer’s Care, a project that investigates Alzheimer’s disease through photography and daily life at the Sacra Famiglia Foundation in Cesano Boscone. The exhibition is a collaboration between two historical entities of the Ambrosian Diocese and is supported by Intesa Sanpaolo. Curated by Giovanna Calvenzi, the initiative presents sixty photographs by Enrico Zuppi (1909-1992), Gianni Berengo Gardin (1930-2025) and Marianna Sambiase.

The exhibition is divided into three sections that develop following a thematic thread between memory, care and everyday life. The path begins with the work of Marianna Sambiase, an educator in the Alzheimer’s Unit of the RSA San Pietro of the Fondazione Sacra Famiglia. Her photographs do not document structures or therapies, but focus on people: faces, hands, gestures and small signs of disorientation that reveal the persistence of a need for recognition. The images become a tool for relating to and extending patients’ identities, showing the role of photography as a mediation between care and perception of the other.

The second section offers a historical look at the Foundation through a series of shots by Enrico Zuppi dating back to 1946. These photographs depict life at Holy Family in the early postwar years, when the institution was taking in people with severe disabilities, “incurables of the countryside,” war victims and orphans. Zuppi, with his direct language, creates portraits and scenes of collective life that convey universal emotions.

The third section collects the shots of Gianni Berengo Gardin, who was called in 2011 to document life in the Foundation. The photographer recounts the daily life of the Home, therapeutic activities, school, moments of play and the relationships between guests and operators, using black and white as a narrative tool. His images describe the facility and its operation with clarity and participation, highlighting the relationship between those who live and work within it without slipping into the anecdotal or celebratory.

“The exhibition Don’t Forget,” says Monsignor Bruno Marinoni, Episcopal Vicar for Economic Affairs and President of Fondazione Sacra Famiglia, “is a project to mark the 130th anniversary of Fondazione Sacra Famiglia. The goal is to offer a delicate and unprecedented look at the complex issue of Alzheimer’s and dementia, emphasizing the value and mystery of human identity in the face of fragility. It is a message that we want to offer, with respect, to all of society: the person is precious in the eyes of God and mankind, even when he or she can no longer communicate with words. It is up to us to find ways to enter into a relationship with everyone, as our workers do every day and as anyone can learn to do, if they allow themselves to be questioned by this reality.”

“The Diocesan Museum,” emphasizes Nadia Righi, director of the Diocesan Museum, “is very attentive to the language of photography, an extraordinary tool for reading man and reality. The theme we are proposing on this occasion is particularly important for us: through the telling of the story and experience of the Holy Family, in fact, we get to reflect on today, to urge each visitor to look at the other, even the most defenseless, always emphasizing the mystery that inhabits every man.”

“From 1946 to today, the history of the Fondazione Sacra Famiglia passes through the gazes of three photographers,” saysGiovanna Calvenzi, curator of the exhibition, “who tell the story of care as a concrete, everyday gesture. From Enrico Zuppi’s humanist images, to Gianni Berengo Gardin’s rigorous narrative, to Marianna Sambiase’s immersive work in the RSA, photography becomes memory and relationship. Not just documentation, but presence: a gaze that shortens distances, restores dignity and transforms the image into a form of care.”

Don't Forget: photography to investigate Alzheimer's at Milan Diocesan Museum

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