COUNTLESS CITIES 2025
Fourth Edition
Across Sicily · June 2025 – May 2026
The Superpowers of Culture and good relationships
We live in a world shaped by conflict: between people and communities, generations and nations, humanity and nature, technology and everyday life. Countless Cities 2025 asks how culture and good relationships can become transformative forces—capable of mediating differences, rebuilding trust and creating more peaceful, inclusive and resilient cities.
The fourth edition of Countless Cities explored the following topics:
Culture Always
Culture as an engine for the development of human beings and a tool for change: to take care of and enhance common goods, to make existing rights real and effective, to recognize new ones, and to take people left behind by the hand.
Healthy Cities
The relationship between the urban environment and health: by promoting those international good practices that, with different approaches related to green areas, mobility, social cohesion, culture or sport, focus on improving the health of citizens.
Cities & Soft Power
An increasingly important role is being given to the concept of “soft power,” which involves not only cities but also companies, museums, universities, religious denominations and other institutions of civil society, to propose culture and values.
RING for Countless Cities
Starting this year, the fourth edition of the Biennale of the Cities of the World is enriched by a collaboration with Ring Beyond Borders through a research project titled "Mapping a Fractured World", coordinated by Carla Bartoli in collaboration with Frances Carlson, Ciganer Albeniz, Davide Russello, and Ines Billeaud. The project explores the dynamics of contemporary global conflicts—from wars between nations to ethnic tensions and civil unrest.
The pavilions curated by RING for this edition are:
The Gaza Genocide – One of the Most Severe Humanitarian and Moral Catastrophes of Our Time
Khartoum Pavilion – Climate, Chaos and Conflict: Political Instability in the Sahel
Kinshasa Pavilion – The Congo Wars: The Persistence of Ethnic Divisions and Violence
Haiti Pavilion – Forgotten Humanitarian Crisis: Stories of Resistance and Survival from a Forgotten Nation
In an exploration that follows the historical and literary traces left by works that have shaped their global imaginary, literature blends with interviews, research meets current events, and writing intertwines with travel—woven together by a fil rouge that seeks balance between the concepts of border, vision, and identity.
Six cities that rarely feature among travelers’ top destinations, yet offer a deep sense of authenticity to those who walk their streets in search of their truest soul. Six beautiful cities, still untouched by mass tourism. Six places where the traveler is still welcomed with curiosity and interest—not as yet another consumer of an endless pie.
Take this journey with us, confident you won’t be disappointed—and that afterwards, you’ll want to explore them in person, with the right book tucked under your arm.
Literature & Cities by Roberto Bruccoleri
Pavilions
ASTANA Kazakhstan · BORDEAUX France · FOREST CITY Malaysia · GAZA Palestine · HAITI Haiti · KHARTOUM Sudan · KINSHASA Democratic Republic of the Congo · MEDELLÍN Colombia · NAZARETH Palestine · NUSANTARA Indonesia · SONGDO South Korea · SOUTH KOREA South Korea · THE LINE Saudi Arabia · VARANASI India
VARANASI PAVILION
A Journey into the Infinite
Venue: Villa Genuardi | Agrigento
One of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, Varanasi exists between everyday life and eternity. Through Andrea Marchegiani’s photographic reportage and Salvatore Izzo’s video contribution, the Pavilion offers a visual and sensory journey through its narrow streets, temples, ghats, sacred ceremonies and daily cremations. An immersive portrait of a city where life and death coexist, and where time appears to dissolve into the infinite.
Curated by: Farm Cultural Park
Photography: Andrea Marchegiani
Video: Salvatore Izzo
With the support of: Sicilian Region
In collaboration with: Municipality of Agrigento, Valley of the Temples Archaeological Park, Superintendence for Cultural Heritage of Agrigento and Municipality of Aragona
ASTANA | SONGDO| THE LINE | NUSANTARA | FOREST CITY PAVILIONS
New Cities: Built from Scratch
Venue: Auditorium Incompiuto | Aragona
From Songdo’s smart technologies to the radical verticality of The Line, cities built from scratch promise new models of efficiency, sustainability and urban life. Through installations, videos and images, the Pavilion examines the ambitions and contradictions behind these contemporary urban experiments. Presented inside a public building left unfinished for thirty years, the exhibition asks a fundamental question: can new cities create more inclusive and human futures, or will they become social and environmental dystopias?
Curated by: Analogique and Farm Cultural Park
Special participation: Filippo Venturi
With the support of: Sicilian Region
In collaboration with: Municipality of Agrigento, Valley of the Temples Archaeological Park, Superintendence for Cultural Heritage of Agrigento and Municipality of Aragona
SOUTH KOREA PAVILION
A Day in South Korea
Venue: Farm XL, Sette Cortili · Favara.
An immersive journey through a country where ancient traditions coexist with rapid modernization. Moving between Seoul, Busan and South Korea’s traditional villages, the Pavilion explores how architecture, cinema and music express a society in constant transformation. Mobile structures, projections, photographs, sounds and suspended lights create a temporary city in motion. Between memory and innovation, the exhibition reflects on the cultural and political tensions of a nation still searching for reconciliation.
Project Team: Renzo Lecardane, Zeila Tesoriere, Paola La Scala, Inhee Lee, Jaehoon Chung, Yoonjeong Kim, Mladen Jadric, Silvia Serreli, Gianfranco Sanna and Giovanni Maria Biddau
With the support of: Pusan National University, University of Palermo, TU Wien and University of Sassari
GAZA PAVILION
The Gaza Genocide
Venue: Palazzo Tortorici · Mazzarino
Through photographs, audiovisual works, testimonies and geopolitical analysis, the Pavilion documents the destruction of Gaza and the denial of the Palestinian population’s fundamental human rights. Conceived as an exhibition of denunciation and remembrance, it brings visitors into the daily reality of war, displacement and loss. More than an exhibition, it is an act of cultural resistance: a call to preserve memory, defend human dignity and refuse the silence of indifference.
Curator: RING Beyond Borders
Scientific Curators: Ines Billeaud and Davide Russello
Participating artists: Haitham Emad, Mohamed Yaghi and Mahmoud Atassi
HAITI PAVILION
Forgotten Humanitarian Crisis
Venue: Ex Carcere Agrigento
Haiti is facing one of the gravest and most overlooked humanitarian emergencies in the world. Violence, displacement, food insecurity and the collapse of essential services have transformed everyday life for millions of people. Through testimonies, images and documentary material, the Pavilion gives visibility to a crisis too often ignored. At its centre are not only suffering and abandonment, but also the courage, resistance and determination of the Haitian people.
Curator: RING Beyond Borders
Scientific Curator: Lena Ciganer Albeniz
Featured work:Haiti: Words Against Bullets by Charles Emptaz and Olivier Jobard, ARTE, 2024
Exhibition Design: Carla and Andrea Bartoli
Installation: La Bella Team
Graphic Design: Lorenzo Romano
KINSHASA PAVILION
The Congo Wars
Venue: Farm XL, Sette Cortili · Favara
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has endured decades of violence shaped by ethnic tensions, foreign intervention and competition over natural resources. The consequences of the Rwandan genocide and the rise of armed movements such as M23 continue to destabilize North and South Kivu. Through documentary materials, research and testimonies, the Pavilion examines why peace remains elusive and how conflict continues to affect communities across one of Africa’s most complex regions.
Curator: RING Beyond Borders
Scientific Curator: Laura Ridoux
Featured work: Beni Files, Het Peloton, Congo, 2017
Exhibition Design: Carla and Andrea Bartoli
Installation: La Bella Team
Graphic Design: Lorenzo Romano
I will never leave my home ALIVE
Venue: Former San Vito Prison · Agrigento
The Pavilion explores the Palestinian relationship with home as a place of identity, memory and resistance. Beginning with the Nakba and continuing through the forms of displacement that persist today, the project examines how architecture can conceal disappearance while preserving traces of belonging. Abandoned houses, erased villages and surviving landscapes become witnesses to a presence that refuses to vanish. To inhabit, remember and remain are presented as acts of cultural and spatial resistance.
Curator: Razan Zoubi Zeidan
Medellín Pavilion
A Landscape of Urban Transformation
Venue: Former San Vito Prison · Agrigento
Dates: June 28, 2025 – May 30, 2026
The Medellín Pavilion presents a dreamlike interpretation of the Colombian city’s transformation from a place associated with extreme violence into an international reference for social urbanism and public architecture. Water, vegetation, suspended elements and light evoke the geography of the Aburrá Valley and the river that crosses it. Installed within a courtyard of the former San Vito Prison, the project transforms an enclosed space into a landscape of ecological and social rebirth.
Architectural Project: Luca Bullaro, with Andrea Bartoli and Federico Bartoli
Museographic Design: Luca Bullaro, Jorge Pérez Jaramillo and Giovanna Spera
Research: Paisajes Antrópicos, TRANSEPTO Research Group, Faculty of Architecture, National University of Colombia
KHARTOUM PAVILION
Climate, Chaos and Conflict
Political Instability in the Sahel
Venue: Farm XL, Sette Cortili · Favara
Dates: June 27, 2025 – May 30, 2026
Sudan is experiencing the devastating consequences of political instability, armed conflict and climate change. The increasing scarcity of water, land and natural resources intensifies tensions and makes already vulnerable communities even more fragile. Through research, documentary works and critical analysis, the Pavilion explores the connections between environmental crisis and warfare. It is a journey through forced migration, humanitarian emergency and the struggle for survival in a rapidly changing region.
Curator: RING Beyond Borders
Scientific Curator: Beatrice Baldi
Featured work:The Elephants and the Grass, Philamedia, 2023 — Journeyman Pictures
Exhibition Design: Carla Bartoli, Andrea Bartoli and Federico Bartoli Felter
Installation Team: Fabrizio La Bella, Daniela La Bella and Amin Berrad
Graphic Design: Lorenzo Romano
Social Media: Alessio Consoli
Produced by: Farm Cultural Park
Co-produced by: Farm Foundation
BORDEAUX PAVILION
The City and the Garonne
Venue: Cittadella dei Giovani · Alcamo
Dates: July 4, 2025 – May 30, 2026
The Bordeaux Pavilion explores the relationship between the city and the Garonne, understood as both a vital resource and a shared space between human and non-human life. Through memory, logistics, imagination and environmental responsibility, the project examines how the river has shaped Bordeaux and how it may influence its future. The Pavilion invites visitors to reconsider urban rivers as living systems capable of connecting ecology, culture, movement and collective identity.
Curator: Luca Lotti
Developed in collaboration with: Bordeaux School of Architecture and Landscape and Sciences Po Bordeaux
