Once again, we are throwing open the doors of the Pirelli Foundation for Archivi Aperti, the multi-venue festival run by Rete Fotografia to celebrate and promote photography across Italy. Running from 16 to 25 October, this 12th edition focuses on the theme “Reflected Identities: Society Through Photography”. It opens with a conference at the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan.

Our guided tours, “Shaping the World: Changing Objects, Storytelling Images”, offer a chance to explore modern identity through photographs from the Pirelli Historical Archive. The display looks back over projects and products that have had – and continue to have – an impact on our constantly evolving society. The Pirelli projects and products that made a tangible contribution to building the modern world range from foam rubber for toys and furniture to the rubber and linoleum flooring that became a decisive factor in the development of public spaces, through to the tyres that helped make mass motoring possible.

The Pirelli Foundation’s new exhibition, From Design to Object: The Languages of Research and Art in the World of Pirelli, features photos of factories, products, advertising campaigns, and the places of use. Together, they trace a path from concept to finished item, showing how products were promoted and adopted by society, and leaving a trail of our changing identity.

This process stands out most clearly inside the factory. Photo essays on production and work – by master photographers like Gabriele Basilico, Rodolfo Facchini, Arno Hammacher, Uliano Lucas, and Enzo Nocera – show the industrial world as a place where group identity is created. Photographs of trade fairs, stands, and window displays capture the interplay between object, space, and viewer. There are also photos taken specially for advertisements, featuring carefully planned studio still-lifes or shoots showing products in their place of use. These can be seen, for example, in Ugo Mulas’s famous campaigns for the Pirelli Cinturato and Federico Patellani’s photos of youngsters on Vespas fitted with the latest motor scooter tyres.

As one goes around the exhibition, the sequence of images tells a tale in which the history of the company weaves into the story of wider society. It illustrates a web of reflected identities in which photography proves to be a critical means of understanding and conveying the complexities of real life and giving shape to the world.

Guided tours are scheduled for Friday, 23 October 2026, in two sessions (2 and 17 p.m.). Admission is free, but booking is required using this tool: Archivi Aperti 2026 – Shaping the World: Changing Objects, Storytelling Images – Modern Identity Through Projects and Products in Photographs from the Pirelli Historical Archive – Pirelli Foundation