Image: Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano, Naples
Gallerie d’Italia – Turin is presenting Nick Brandt’s ‘The Day May Break. La luce alla fine del giorno’, an exhibition bringing together all four chapters of the photographer’s ongoing project. Curated by Arianna Rinaldo, the exhibition is scheduled to run from 18 March through 6 September 2026 at the museum’s Piazza San Carlo location.
Begun in 2020, ‘The Day May Break’ comprises approximately 60 works depicting people and animals affected by climate change, environmental degradation and ecological devastation. The project focuses on the disproportionate effects of the climate crisis on some of the world’s most vulnerable populations. In Turin, the four chapters are being shown together for the first time, including the fourth chapter, commissioned by Intesa Sanpaolo.
‘Chapter One’ (2021), made in Kenya and Zimbabwe, places human and animal subjects within the same frame. The works address extreme drought, habitat destruction and the illegal wildlife trade, and were made in sanctuaries and reserves where animals had survived different forms of environmental catastrophe. ‘Chapter Two’ (2022), produced in Bolivia, continues the project’s examination of communities and animals confronting drought, flooding and the loss of homes and livelihoods.
The third section, ‘Chapter Three – SINK / RISE’ (2023), was made in Fiji. Its subjects were photographed directly underwater in an imagery the museum describes as symbolic and pre-apocalyptic. The chapter considers the communities that may lose homes, land and aspects of their identity as rising sea levels reshape island environments in the coming decades.
‘Chapter Four – The Echo of Our Voices’ (2024), made in the desert of Jordan, portrays refugee families who left Syria because of war and remain in conditions of prolonged displacement. In this body of work, Brandt connects human resilience and relationships with the arid conditions in which the families live, linking the consequences of conflict and climate change without separating the social and environmental dimensions of their experience.
Born in London in 1964, Brandt has spent more than two decades making photographic series about environmental destruction and climate collapse, particularly their effects on vulnerable people, animals and the natural world. His earlier projects include the East African trilogy ‘On This Earth, A Shadow Falls, Across The Ravaged Land’ (2001–2012), followed by the panoramic series ‘Inherit the Dust’ (2016) and ‘This Empty World’ (2019). The Turin exhibition presents ‘The Day May Break’ at Gallerie d’Italia – Turin from 18 March to 6 September 2026.
