Salgado in Bassano del Grappa: the wounds of the world, the beauty of nature and the responsibility to look

An exhibition to experience with your eyes and your heart—and with the awareness that none of us is separate from the world we live in.

From 24 October 2026 to 4 April 2027, the Civic Museum of Bassano del Grappa will host *Sebastião Salgado. Photographs from the Maison Européenne de la Photographie Collection, Paris*: an exhibition tracing fifty years in the career of one of today’s leading documentary photographers.

The exhibition features more than 160 photographs and offers a precious opportunity to encounter the perspective of an artist who has travelled across continents, told the stories of peoples and documented the great contradictions of our time. It is curated by Pascal Hoël, Head of Collections at the MEP, and organised in collaboration with the prestigious Parisian institution.

Discover the exhibition on the official Civic Museumswebsite

A collection born of a special bond

The photographs on display come from the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris, one of France’s leading institutions devoted to photography. Its collaboration with Salgado dates back to the 1980s and has grown stronger over time through acquisitions, exhibitions and support for his projects.

A particularly significant moment came in 2018, when Sebastião Salgado and his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado, donated an exceptional collection of 105 original photographic prints to the MEP. Many of these works are on display in Bassano, alongside other photographs added to the collection over the years.

This is therefore more than a selection of famous images: it bears witness to a cultural and human relationship built over decades of work. The exhibition conveys the richness of an artistic practice that has brought together documentary rigour, social awareness and an extraordinary ability to make visible what we often prefer not to see.

From human tragedy to primordial beauty

The exhibition is divided into two main sections. The first takes visitors through some of Salgado’s most important series: *Other Americas*, *Sahel*, *Serra Pelada Gold Mine – Brazil*, *Workers*, *Kuwait*, *Exodus* and *Children of the Exodus*.

These photographs tell stories of labour, hardship, migration, war and inequality. The black and white intensifies their impact, restoring dignity to the faces depicted and bringing the human experiences they capture closer to us—experiences that might otherwise remain distant from our everyday lives.

The second section is devoted to *Genesis*, the major project Salgado developed over more than seven years, exploring territories, animals and communities that have largely remained untouched by human intervention.

Here, photography becomes a tribute to the beauty and fragility of our planet. It is this contrast that makes the exhibition so powerful: on the one hand, the wounds inflicted by humanity; on the other, the wonder of a natural world that still surprises us and that we have a duty to protect.

“No one has the right to protect himself from the tragedies of his time”

These words by Salgado, displayed in the exhibition, particularly moved me:

“No one has the right to protect himself from the tragedies of his time, becouse we are all responsible, in a certain way, for what happens in the society in which we have chosen to live.”

Words that reach beyond photography and speak directly to us.

I have already visited the exhibition, and I left with a feeling that is hard to forget: a powerful blow to the heart as I confronted the social and environmental disasters caused by humanity, and the injustice and suffering that run through our planet. Yet alongside that pain, I also felt the need to lift my gaze and find solace in the beauty of the images of nature.