Capodimonte launches Raffaela Mariniello photography project 'C’è vita nel caos e nella polvere'

Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples has opened 'C’è vita nel caos e nella polvere', a new photography project by Raffaela Mariniello that will enter the museum’s permanent collection. The initiative began on 28 July 2026 and runs through December 2026 as part of 'Il Museo Rigenera – Edizione. Fotografia', a call promoted by the Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea of Italy’s Ministry of Culture.

According to the museum, the project positions Capodimonte as an active cultural presiding place in dialogue with its surrounding territory through inclusive artistic practice. Mariniello’s series will consist of one lightbox and five prints, focused on the marginal areas around the museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte. The institution notes that although the site sits within the urban fabric, it is contiguous with districts including Miano, Secondigliano, Scampia and Ponti Rossi, as well as the Rione Sanità.

The project is closely tied to Capodimonte’s existing photography collection and to the museum’s broader commitment to photographic research. In the museum’s announcement, director Eike Schmidt said the institution is pleased to welcome Mariniello and described the initiative as having both social and artistic value. He also linked the project to the museum’s stewardship of Mimmo Jodice’s collection and to a planned 'Casa della Fotografia', saying the museum aims to foster exchanges between artists, young people and the local area.

Mariniello, whose work has long focused on peripheral spaces, frames the project around the historic extraction sites that adjoin Capodimonte. In the statement published by the museum, she refers to the tufo quarries beside the site and recalls that, in the 18th century, a vast construction effort involved men, women and children working in harsh conditions for little pay. She presents the new work as dedicated to those people whose labour helped transform raw earth into the architecture visible today.

The project’s activity began with site visits and will continue through December 2026 with workshops and photography walks. Capodimonte says these activities will be carried out with the associations F2Lab APS and Zona Rosa ETS. The museum’s text says the programme is intended to encourage a participatory gaze and build a deeper relationship with places and the communities that inhabit them, while also tracing historical layers, social and environmental fragilities, and forms of everyday resistance.

The museum adds that the urban walks and photographic exploration will focus on transitional spaces between city centre and outskirts, including areas that still reveal a rural landscape embedded in the tufaceous formation of the Capodimonte hill. It describes these zones as places where traces of nature, historical memory and contemporary transformation coexist. The acquisition of 'C’è vita nel caos e nella polvere' will expand Capodimonte’s photography holdings, which already include major bodies of work by Mimmo Jodice and works by Fabio Donato, Candida Höfer, Olivo Barbieri, Craige Horsfield, Timothy Greenfield Sanders and Salvino Campos.