There is a photograph that does not merely show, but questions. That does not stop at aesthetics, but opens up a profound reflection on our relationship with space, landscape, and time.
Dimorare. In viaggio con Alex MacLean (Dwelling. Traveling with Alex MacLean), the exhibition curated by Valentina Zucchi, scheduled from December 20, 2025, to March 22, 2026, at the Museo delle Terre Nuove in San Giovanni Valdarno, is exactly that: a visual and conceptual experience that invites us to observe the world from a new and necessary perspective.
Promoted and organized by the Municipality of San Giovanni Valdarno and the MUS.E Foundation, with the contribution of the Tuscany Region, the exhibition celebrates one of the most influential interpreters of international contemporary photography. Alex MacLean, an award-winning American pilot and photographer, has transformed the aerial viewpoint into a true form of visual thinking. His images, published in leading international magazines, depict the Earth as a complex organism, shaped by the continuous intertwining of nature and human intervention.
A significant return to the Museo delle Terre Nuove
The link between MacLean and San Giovanni Valdarno is not new. When the Museo delle Terre Nuove was founded, the photographer was commissioned to create a series of aerial views of medieval Tuscan towns, images that still constitute one of the museum’s most distinctive features. Dimorare starts from here, bringing these photographs into dialogue with a wide selection of the artist’s work, in a journey that begins in the local area and embraces the entire ecumene.
The result is a fluid narrative, where past and present, Tuscany and the world, urban planning and spontaneous transformations come together under the same gaze.
The world seen from above: between beauty and responsibility
The power of Alex MacLean’s photography lies in his ability to combine documentary rigor with aesthetic sensitivity. Each image is constructed with almost architectural precision, yet retains a powerful poetic dimension. Cultivated fields, cities, infrastructure, deserts, and coastlines become legible signs of a larger narrative: that of humanity’s footprint on Earth.
The exhibition invites visitors to slow down, observe, and recognize patterns, geometries, and repetitions. It is an exercise in visual awareness that inevitably leads to a broader reflection on the themes of sustainability, environmental balance, and collective responsibility.
Domestic nature: the aesthetics of human intervention
A central section of Dimorare is dedicated to domestic nature, or natural landscapes that have been profoundly transformed by human activity. Intensive cultivation, whether agricultural or floral, seen from above, is transformed into abstract patterns, into chromatic compositions of surprising beauty. Lines, circles, and fields of color tell the story of a domesticated nature, organized according to productive logic that unintentionally becomes artistic form.
Here, MacLean works on the fine line between visual attraction and ethical questioning: is what appears harmonious truly sustainable? Can beauty become a tool for stimulating critical reflection?
Passageways and invisible geometries
Alongside agricultural landscapes, the exhibition explores places of transit: parking lots, highway junctions, ports, rest areas. These are spaces we pass through every day without noticing them, but when viewed from above, they reveal a surprising compositional power. MacLean transforms them into almost abstract images, where the rhythm of the lines and the repetition of the shapes construct a rigorous and contemporary visual language.
It is precisely in these shots that the artist’s ability to make the invisible visible, to attribute aesthetic dignity to what we usually consider marginal, emerges with force.
Living today: cities, suburbs, and fragile landscapes
The exhibition continues with a reflection on the forms of contemporary living. The cities and towns photographed by MacLean—from the residential neighborhoods of Las Vegas to the desert landscapes of Arizona and the suburbs of Europe—interact with their geographical context, highlighting proportions, volumes, and urban textures.
Particularly poignant are the images of Mystic Island, New Jersey, a coastal settlement increasingly vulnerable to rising sea levels. Here, photography becomes testimony and warning, raising urgent questions about the future of communities and the relationship between humans and the environment.
A natural dialogue with Florence’s Terre Nuove
The reflection on urban geometries finds a profound echo in the context that hosts the exhibition. The Florentine Terre Nuove, and San Giovanni Valdarno in particular, are an emblematic example of cities designed according to a precise idea of order, function, and community. Dimorare thus creates an ideal bridge between the urban utopia of the past and the challenges of the present, inviting us to rethink the very concept of living.
Dimorare is not just a photographic exhibition: it is an invitation to look at the world more closely, to recognize the traces we leave on the landscape and to imagine new possibilities for balance between man and the environment. An unmissable event for those who love art, travel, and stories that arise from the encounter between vision and responsibility.
Useful information
The exhibition Dimorare. In viaggio con Alex MacLean (Dwelling. Traveling with Alex MacLean) can be visited at the Museo delle Terre Nuove, Palazzo d’Arnolfo, Piazza Cavour, San Giovanni Valdarno.
Opening hours
Tuesday–Friday: 3:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.
Saturday, Sunday, and holidays: 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. | 3:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Monday: closed
Guided tours
Every Saturday at 4:00 p.m. (reservations recommended)
Contact
Tel.
info@museoterrenuove.it
