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“Now we see in a mirror, dimly; but then we shall see face to face.”

– Paul, First Letter to the Corinthians, 13:12

In Morbegno, just a few steps from my studio, there is a church dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. In Maloja, on the other side of the Alps, there is another church with the same dedication.

This coincidence became the starting point for an attempt to connect the two places not through an image or a narrative, but through a walk.

Their very names evoke travel, movement, the passage from one place to another.

Together with Nicola Scinetti, I decided to walk the distance between the two churches, leaving from Morbegno and arriving in Maloja.

Before setting off, I will carry with me a number of black-and-white photographs of the church in Morbegno, made from 4×5″ negatives. The images carry the trace of a place without revealing its identity. Along the journey, the place they come from may become indistinguishable from the place they are heading towards.

The photographic objects themselves will make the journey.

They will leave Morbegno and arrive in Maloja with us, physically crossing the space that separates and, at the same time, connects the two places. The photograph, therefore, does not document the walk: it makes the journey itself.

Once in Maloja, the photographs will be installed inside the church. Their number and arrangement will not be decided in advance, but on site, in relation to the space, the light, the architecture of the church and the works of the other artists sharing the location.

The work therefore does not begin with the production of an image intended for a particular place, but with the physical transfer of something from one place to another.

Two churches. The same dedication. A walk that connects them.

The work is the journey.

Marcello Mariana + Nicola Scinetti, 2026

4 contact prints from 4×5” black and white film