La Festa dell’Equatore, one of the winning entries in the 2025 Open Call, is a transmedia project that explores the narrative power of visual language. Combining photography, video, sound, archives, maps and an extensive website, Rosa Lacavalla presents a study on migration from Italy to Argentina between the 19^th and 20^th centuries, known as the Italian Diaspora or the Great Migration. A crucial moment during those long journeys was the Festival of the Equator, an event that celebrated the new life the travellers were embarking on, represented by the crossing of that geographical, symbolic line and by the change in the position of the stars when, passing from one hemisphere to another, the celestial map shifted, disorienting navigators.

Lacavalla revives this ancient maritime tradition, surrounded by superstitions, with a poetic, experimental project that moves between family and collective memory, and speaks to us of silence, nostalgia, uncertainty and the invisible boundaries between reality and dreams, all governed by the symbol of the compass, which helps us find the way and avoid disorientation.

Born in Barletta, Italy, in 1993, Rosa Lacavalla is a photographer and visual artist based in Bologna. She holds a BA in Graphic Arts and an MA in Photography from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, along with a one-year study in Photography at Coventry University, UK, as well as an internship with the Cesura collective. Her work has been exhibited at Fotografia Europea in Reggio Emilia, Encontros da Imagem in Braga, Liquida Photofestival in Torino, PhEST in Monopoli, Ras Al Khaimah Art in the United Arab Emirates, PhMuseum Days in Bologna, and FotoLimo Festival between Cerbère and Portbou, among others. Rosa Lacavalla's work has been recognized and shortlisted for awards such as Giovane Fotografia Italiana, the Deloitte Photo Grant, the Francesco Fabbri Award, Emergentes de Braga, the Premio Nera di Verzasca, Safelight Paper, and Futures 2024 by Der Greif.

Rosa Lacavalla (Italy, 1993)
La Festa dell'Equatore

2025 Edition
Open Call winner
Indoor installation
Venue: Romo Kultur Etxea
Collaborator: Picter