Huda Takriti
Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Italy
27 March - 23 August 2026
Castello di Rivoli is a contemporary art museum set in a restored 18th-century castle that once belonged to the House of Savoy. Located just west of Turin, the museum specialises in the development of contemporary art in Italy from the mid-1960s to the present, with a particular focus on Arte Povera. It’s also known for its imaginative international exhibitions and site-specific commissions. Through its programmes, Castello di Rivoli fosters a dialogue between past and present, architecture and art.
For the second edition of Inserzioni, the semiannual commissions programme introduces new commissions in active dialogue with the baroque galleries that used to display the permanent collection, transforming them into a continuously evolving exhibition space. The project engages with the museum’s narrative by inviting contemporary artists to interact with the unfinished architecture of the Castello and the historical and symbolic layering of its rooms, creating unprecedented relationships between artworks, space, and memory.
For her first solo exhibition in Italy, Huda Takriti presents a project that investigates the role of images, cinema, institutions and industry in shaping post-World War II narratives. The intervention brings together the video Clarity is the Closest Wound to the Sun (2023) and two new productions, including It Is Always Midnight In Their Minds (2026), developed from research conducted in Italian archives. The work explores the relationship between the Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI), former European colonies – including Italian ones – and those still struggling for liberation in the 1950s and 1960s, examining the intersections of political support, economic interests, and film production within the context of decolonisation processes. Alongside the videos, Takriti creates a vinyl installation conceived as a contemporary fresco that extends along the walls of Room 29, establishing a dialogue with the palace's historical decorations. The project reflects on the ways historical narratives are constructed and transmitted, questioning the role of images in shaping the collective imaginary.
Huda Takriti (born 1990 in Damascus, Syria) lives and works in Vienna. Her practice spans video, installation, painting and performance, exploring intersections of memory, political history, and archival narratives through themes of displacement, identity, and power. Trained in painting at the University of Damascus and Transdisciplinary Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, she brings a painterly sensibility to time-based media. Her work has shown at MQ Freiraum, Kunsthalle Wien, and Camera Austria.
This is her first collaboration with Phileas.
This exhibition was aided by a research trip to Vienna by the curator Linda Fossati, organised by Phileas in June 2025. Linda Fossati curated the presentation by Huda Takriti.
