Cities, citizens, civilizations are not only necessary themes with respect to the drama of the times, but fundamental aspects of the artist's research. Issues which, taking root in the experiences of the conceptual and social sciences, become a mirror of his commitment.

Paola Di Bello's photographs and videos are hard and brutal, cynical, almost cold, scientific. But just like science they carry with them a logic and a method. "The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but way those are put together", this famous statement by writer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan portrays the charm and essence of the works on display.

The eight cycles of selected works, many of which consist of one-off pieces or vintage prints that are unrepeatable in their technical-physical characteristics, give life to an exhibition that is divided into two ways: the first is that of the series created through a process of participation of subjects / citizens, the second that of works generated by the pure observation of the subjects themselves. Observation and participation constitute the scientific method of the artist. The results are on display.

Of the projects on display we note the cycles such as Lucciole (1988-1991) in which Paola Di Bello has partly entrusted herself to chance, prescribing the limit of documenting and observing the behavior of a family of insects on film; La Disparition (1995) which represents the Paris metro through the relationship between travelers and its map; cycles such as Bildung (1995-2003) and Framing the Community (2006-14) in which the artist collects information on distinct social groups (respectively students and metropolitan inhabitants) with the rigor of an entomologist: an area of ​​Milan in the process of change and well-defined groups that inhabit it, represent a determined and precise period of urban and social transformations, well recognizable historically.