- Linda Hollier
Updated: Oct 4
Ariano Irpino is a city in southern Italy. Once a year in the historic centre of the town, a cultural event is held which transforms the alleyways of the city into an open air creative laboratory. This provides an engaging experience of art, music, performances, installations, workshops, exhibitions and many other features.
The winding alleys, vicoli in Italian, feature multiple layers of paving stones and building materials. The alleys are not simply pathways, but rather reflections of the city’s growth, with each layer telling a story of past inhabitants.
This year’s event is titled VicoliÈArte2025, and promises yet another adventure filled with creativity, beauty and sharing. The event runs from 28 August 2025 - 31 August 2025 and is open daily from 18h00 - 24h00 CET.
I was delighted when I was approached by Aethereal Studios who will present The Aethereal Gallery at the event. Located in extended reality, visitors to the festival will be able to access the gallery in the Auditorium Lina Wertmúller via a virtual reality headset or via a laptop projected onto a screen. Aethereal Studios has offered me a permanent exhibition in their gallery which will open at the festival.
“. . . passeggiare insieme . . .” or “. . . walking together . . .”, the title of my exhibition, will feature my iPhoneart.
The works in this exhibition come with an invitation to journey together. They provoke curiosity and launch a challenge to the viewer to come along and discover the secrets hidden in mysterious alleyways, where one has not traveled before. Embracing the adventure and walking together gives space to a longing to share all the sensations and emotions that arise during the experience.
For those unable to attend the event in person, I invite you to follow my social media for a direct link to the gallery once the festival begins. I hope to see you there!
Update: The gallery is now permanently open and you can visit it here.
- Linda Hollier
Inspired by the 1937 film “Lost Horizon”, the epic adventure “Journey to Shangri-La” can be found in the Spatial metaverse - an immersive, online space that can be experienced via laptop, tablet, mobile or VR headset, and in which users represented by avatars interact.
After watching a short film in a movie theatre, visitors to "Journey to Shangri-La" jump into snowy mountains only to discover that their plane has crashed. One now has to find one’s way to safety and serenity in the magical valley of Shangri-La, high in the Himalayas. Here people live in perfect harmony with nature and no one grows old. Via the lamasery of Shangri-La, one discovers how to find exclusive avatars, is directed to a magic boat ride and is also invited to explore the massive mountain terrain with breathtaking views.
I am very excited to have been invited by Dave Fox, the builder of “Journey to Shangri-La”, to have a solo exhibition in a gallery in this space.
My exhibition ”Whispers of White” is an immersive exploration into the tranquil and ethereal world crafted through the lens of iPhone artistry. As a result of multi-sensory perception, this collection captures the unseen energies and unspoken moments in serene white hues.
”Whispers of White” invites the viewer to delve into a symphony of subtle shades, where every piece echoes calmness and purity. On this unique journey, each artwork whispers its own tale in white, and invites one to experience art beyond sight.
It is my wish that like a prism separates white light into different colors, the spirit of each viewer may reveal hidden depths within these artworks.
You are invited to visit Journey to Shangri-La and encounter my exhibition.
Whispers of White: 1 December 2024 - 31 December 2024
- Linda Hollier
Updated: Mar 26, 2024
Maro Dori Sky Palace is one of the architectural wonders of the Spatial Metaverse. This celestial gallery showcases the imaginary, noble bird Maro Dori, a creation of a special, young Japanese artist Michiko, paired with the captivating, seasonal Kyoto photos of Fumio Kojima. The result is a blend of tradition and modernity.
This beautiful, virtual environment features floating bridges that allow users to walk through a sequence of gallery spaces and connect with others along the way.
Imagine my excitement when I was invited to have a solo exhibition in one of the galleries.
Many of you know that I love architecture and spent many years photographing the architecture of Dubai, so to be invited to exhibit in this architecturally unique Japanese virtual space was very special.
Because of the many floating bridges in the space and because I believe that architecture is in itself a bridge, as it has the ability to move people emotionally, I was inspired to call this exhibition, “Bridging Worlds”.
My artworks in this exhibition feature people from various parts of the world, and invite us to walk in the shoes of those who have worldviews different to our own. We are invited to bridge our differences and instead realize our similarities and our interconnectedness..
The figures in the artworks invite us to follow them and move along a bridge from the outer world to the inner world of contemplation. As much as there is a sense of stillness in movement in the artworks, there is also a sense of movement into stillness.
The exhibition is also a celebration of the many bridges that I have already crossed on my explorations in the metaverse.
My collaboration with the Japanese community in Spatial has enabled us to bridge language barriers by researching and discovering modern speech to text technology.
As a result of implementing this technology which facilitates communication, people who are hard of hearing are now able to feel fully included in the metaverse. Different speaking communities in the metaverse are also communicating more easily with each other, uniting us all.
Time zones are no longer a barrier as the metaverse has encouraged us to bridge this challenge.
Many of our artworks are both physical and digital, the metaverse being the bridge to the phygital.
Someone expressed to me recently that the metaverse is a bridge which enables them to be both social in the virtual realm and yet solitary in the physical realm at the same time.
As we continue to connect in the metaverse we are building bridges. Dr Judi Harris put it so beautifully:
“When I see cyberspace, I see bridges. Perhaps I should say I see people, building bridges in cyberspace. Not bridges of steel, not even electronic bridges, but bridges of ideas that span the miles of physical space, cross the generations and connect people who would otherwise be unlikely ever to meet.”
You, dear reader, are invited to join me in the Maro Dori Sky Palace and to cross bridges you had not before thought were possible.
Bridging Worlds: 1 April 2024 - 31 May 2024
A Japanese version of this blog post has been published here.
There will be a cherry blossom viewing and exhibition celebration on 1 April 2024 at 10PM JST/9AM EST/3PM CET in Ambient Canvas. Experience a Japanese style hangout with Koto music, before joining me on a journey to "Bridging Worlds".