Piero Siena Prize 2026 — Stefano Bernardi and Samira Mosca

Curated by Federica Lamedica
First Floor, Castello Building, Rooms 7 and 9
From September 25

In collaboration with the Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol, Department of Italian Culture and Museion – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bolzano, Castello di Rivoli is collaborating on the 2026 edition of the Piero Siena Award, as part of an agreement through which the Province acquires and donates to the partner museums works by artists working in South Tyrol, following a selection process conducted together with the museums themselves. The winning artists are Stefano Bernardi (Bolzano, 1970) for Castello di Rivoli and Samira Mosca (Bolzano, 1995) for Museion.

Stefano Bernardi’s practice revolves around sound understood as a physical phenomenon, a perceptual experience, and a means of connection. At the Castello, the work on display Mélissa 4 was produced using recordings of the vibrations emitted by bees as they move through tubes of different sizes and materials, organ pipes, and latex balloons. The project reflects on the relationship between human beings and other life forms, recognising bees not as objects of
observation, but as collaborators in the making of the work.

Through photography, ceramics, installation, and performance, Samira Mosca investigates the body as a space traversed by memories, desires, traumas, and cultural and social constructs. Her research explores how norms, pathologies, and forms of control influence the perception of the self and the relationship with one’s own physicality, understood as a place where individual and collective experiences are deposited. Part of a series of works that the artist has been producing since 2017, Interspace – Chapter III reflects on eating disorders and how they affect the body through the deception of the mind.

After an initial presentation to the public at the Centro Trevi in Bolzano in summer 2026, the award-winning works are exhibited in the historic rooms of Castello di Rivoli, whose permanent Collection acquires the installation by Bernardi on view, as well as the video work Mélissa.