Buses in Florence, Pistoia and Livorno become ... art galleries complete with exhibitions

In Tuscany, specifically in Florence, Pistoia and Livorno via the Gallery - art on the bus project, which transforms some local bus lines buses into... art galleries. For a month, some buses traveling the streets of some Tuscan cities will tell the stories that some female artists have entrusted to photography, drawing and poetry. Their works will be displayed on the pendants inside each bus, hanging from the handrail: on one side a work of art, on the other side a text presenting the project by the artist, and then contacts and their web references with QRcodes. The bus will be visitable just like an art gallery: each pendant will offer a different work, and the entire exhibition will be visitable in a path between getting on and off the bus.

Autolinee Toscane ’s project targets artists who were born or live in Tuscany by offering the opportunity to display their creations to a very large audience: that of bus passengers. The first trip of “Gallery” starts, as mentioned, in three cities (Florence, Pistoia and Livorno) and features the works of four female artists. In Florence, Emma Olimpia Dell’Elba has combined her passion for photography with that of embroidery: using thread, she creates areas of color, costumes, geometric shapes and surreal worlds on old vintage portraits. Dell’Elba began photography at age 14 and has pursued several paths of study in photography, including the Free Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. After portraiture and fashion, she turned to a particular technique in 2020, during the pandemic, when she began embroidering on old photographs found in flea markets and thus made connections between unknown people from the past and contemporary worlds. It is no coincidence that her traveling exhibition, consisting of nine works, is titled Born again / Reborn.

The other artist exhibiting on the bus in Florence is Sara Corsi, a very young illustrator and graphic designer with a background in graphic design & multimedia, culminating in a degree in Illustration for Publishing at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. Her portfolio includes single and group exhibitions. On the bus she offers Yearning Dreamer, a collection of eight illustrations inspired by a hyper-connected and digital world, but also by comics, pop culture and graffiti art.

In Pistoia, the selected artist is Monica Petroni and her form of expression is words. She participates in the project with La Poesia Oltre la Porta del Consueto (Poetry Beyond the Door of the Usual), a collection of 10 poems that, thanks to the direct and immediate language, want to establish an empathetic path with the passenger who reads them. The verses accompany him to reflect on various aspects of life: love, mainly, but also changes in society, individual sensitivities, pain, fate. Petroni is an artist from Viareggio who lives in Pistoia. A writer, poet, author of video-poems and playwright (she has co-written the subject and prose of several musicals), she has been featured in several publications.

Exhibiting on the bus in Livorno is Livornese Agnese Gaglio, whose art form is based on writing, or rather as she explains it, on the love of words. Gaglio already has to her credit a novel What I Want More released last February. “I am my words,” says the artist, “everything else is outline. And indeed on the pendants hanging from the handrails of the buses are his letters to those boarding the buses, who are asked in a straightforward manner if ”Have you ever looked at someone only with the eyes of love?“ The answers are gradually found on texts that Gaglio lines up along the bus and thus along the journey that every tpl passenger must take. In short, a journey into words within the bus ride. ”I have always had a passion for writing,“ explains Gaglio, ”my ink finds space everywhere, notebooks, notebooks, scattered sheets and even on my skin, which has more than thirty tattoos. So it was inevitable that when Autolinee Toscane chose me for this initiative, I enthusiastically accepted because it allowed me to leave my words even on the buses."

Other artists can try for a free showcase, open to a wide audience. Everyone can participate in the selection with any kind of artistic expression: from photography to figurative art, from illustration to words: just fill out the form at https://www.at-bus.it/it/gallery (also reachable from the QRcode on the pendants inside the buses) indicating the chosen discipline, entering the works you intend to exhibit, and choosing the territorial basin where you would like to be present.

Autolinee Toscane’s team will evaluate the works together with a network of consultants and cultural partners with whom it collaborates throughout the year; the selected artist will receive an indication of the exhibition period, city, and bus serial number. In addition, Autolinee Toscane will also notify each artist of the “first ride” of the bus: this will allow them to arrange their own opening and the ticket will be included in the bus ticket.

Buses in Florence, Pistoia and Livorno become ... art galleries complete with exhibitions

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.