PUGLIAUTENTICA.IT 2020

MASKS, a European project on traditional masks in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Romania. Twelve partners, three years. Communication by Gaetano Armenio.

Born from a WhatsApp chat between colleagues and approved by the European Commission: 12 partners, 4 countries, 3 years of activity.

From Valladolid to a European project

In 2019, during the exhibition Plenilunio di Primavera in Valladolid, some lecturers from the Spanish university had followed closely the work on communicating Apulian Easter rites. A few years later a message arrived on WhatsApp: they wanted to involve me in a European project on traditional masks, entrusting me with the international communication.

An informal conversation about masks and cultural identity. None of us thought that in a few months it would become a three-year project approved by the European Commission. MASKS was born this way, from an exchange between people who trusted one another before they even had a dossier to submit. From relationships built in the field, not from calls for tenders studied at a desk.

What MASKS is

MASKS works on the valorisation of the anthropological and zoomorphic masks tied to the age-old traditions of various European territories, bringing together research, training, visual arts and communication. The aim is to build a digital archive of the masks and the ritual practices connected to them, and to give international visibility to territories often outside the major tourist circuits.

The network brings together 12 partners among universities, training centres, research institutes and cultural bodies from Spain, Portugal, Romania and Italy. Two international exhibitions are planned in two European Capitals of Culture.

The lead partner in the project is the University of Valladolid in Spain, coordinated by Professor Maria Pilar Panero.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

Know-how: the Spanish lecturers saw me work in Valladolid before they proposed MASKS to me
Building relationships in the field, not only by email: trust is built in person, project by project
Handling last-minute difficulties without making them weigh: it is part of the method, not an exception
I designed and coordinate the international communication of the project: website, video, photographic reportage, social media

What I learned

MASKS is still ongoing. What I already know is that five years separate an exhibition in Valladolid from a project funded by the European Commission. In between there was no call for tenders: there was the quality of the work done and the trust of those who had seen it.

Photo by Gaetano Armenio

- Official project website:

https://www.unveilingthemasks.uva.es

- Institutional video:

https://youtu.be/dJ8aUiIu-kI

- Documentary on Tricarico (Basilicata):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vs-8td0RSw&t=7s

Field interview:

https://youtu.be/epYecj80BM4

Molfetta's Holy Week rites at BIT Milan 2025, with immersive video, Bassa Musica and scarcelle tasting. Concept by Gaetano Armenio.

On a commission from the town council I turned Molfetta's Easter into a trade fair format, with the local tourism chain inside the story. And two boxes of sweets gone minutes before opening.

The case of the missing scarcelle

Everything was ready. Stand set up, videos on a loop, scarcelle packaged. Minutes before opening, the discovery. Two boxes of scarcelle had disappeared. In the storeroom of the regional Infopoint, only the empty packaging was left in the bin. Some curious operator had already sampled the Molfetta tradition in preview. No panic. I had planned a secret backup supply, because at trade fairs you don't rely on surveillance alone. In a few minutes I reorganized the display and the tasting. The presentation started on time.

An Easter that becomes a tourism product

On behalf of the Municipality of Molfetta I handled the participation in the BIT, the Milan International Tourism Exchange 2025, as a tourism and cultural marketing project. The aim was to turn Molfetta's Easter into a trade-fair format able to stand out among hundreds of destinations and to speak to buyers, operators and media. I built an experience, not a stand. Immersive video projections on the Holy Week rites, the Bassa Musica "Città di Molfetta" as an identity element, and the scarcella, the sweet that symbolizes the local Easter, at the center of a guided tasting that became a moment of B2B relationship.

But you don't take a format to a fair on your own. Before Milan I built a network with the operators of Molfetta's tourism supply chain, hospitality, restaurants, guides. Not as suppliers, as part of the story. Each brought their own part to the stand: some the products for the tasting, some the itineraries to offer buyers, some the readiness to host groups during Holy Week. At the BIT we shared the promotion, so that a buyer wasn't buying an event but a territory ready to receive them. I conceived the concept, designed the multimedia content and handled communication.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

Concrete vision to share: bring an Easter experience to the fair, not one more exhibitor among many
Immersive videos, live music and a sweet to taste, because brochures aren't remembered
Network the supply chain before the fair: hospitality, restaurants and guides sharing the promotion, so you sell a territory and not an event
A secret backup always ready, because at trade fairs the unexpected is the rule, not the exception
I conceived the concept and designed the multimedia content and communication
Coordinate Municipality, Pugliapromozione, Infopoint, Bassa Musica and local operators under a single direction

What I learned

At the BIT, Molfetta's Easter stopped being just a religious event and became a structured tourism product. I had prepared a whole experience, video, music, tasting, and behind it a coordinated territory. Yet the buyers didn't remember the video or the stand. They remembered the scarcella, and the story of the ones that vanished.

Find out more

- Watch the video of the BIT event on my YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drpGPt281xk

- Find out more about Easter in Molfetta and the Holy Week rituals:

https://www.settimanasantainpuglia.it/en/cities/the-ti-te.html

Photographic exhibition on Holy Week rites in Italy, Spain and Portugal, conceived by Gaetano Armenio.  Rome, Church of Sant'Antonio dei Portoghesi, and Molfetta, Sala dei Templari. 30 March-30 April 2025.

The embassies of Spain and Portugal to the Holy See, an inadequate lighting rig and the lights from my own bedroom.

I bring the lights from home

The room's lighting rig was not enough. Postponing or scaling down was not an option. I loaded the lights from my bedroom into the car and brought them to the Sala dei Templari in Molfetta. It was not a perfect exhibition. It was alive.

A bridge between three nations

I handled the concept, organisation and communication of PER CRUCEM AD LUCEM: an international photography exhibition dedicated to Holy Week rites in Apulia, Portugal and Spain. The aim was to tell European identity through fine art photography and to build a tourism promotion network around the Easter rites.

The exhibition had two venues: Rome, in the Church of Sant'Antonio dei Portoghesi, and Molfetta, in the Sala dei Templari. It was produced with the involvement of the Embassies of Spain and Portugal to the Holy See, the City of Molfetta and the FeArt Cooperative of Onofrio Grieco.

The network of towns it activated links Molfetta, Braga, Medina de Rioseco, Peñafiel and Bercianos de Aliste.

Ninì Vernola's performance

At the Molfetta opening, in the Sala dei Templari, I paired the exhibition with a theatrical performance by the unforgettable actor Ninì Vernola. A dense reading that touched on war and the suffering of the children of Gaza. It moved the audience. It drew criticism from the local institutions present at the opening. I do not regret it.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

Build the network before building the exhibition: embassies, municipalities, confraternities and cultural bodies from three countries
The unexpected gets handled, not postponed: the bedroom lights lit the photographs because there was no alternative
Pair art with civic commitment: a performance that divides is a performance that touches something real
I handled the concept, organisation, communication and setup of the photographic project.

What I learned

The lights from my bedroom lit the photographs for a month in a hall in Molfetta. The comment I heard most often from visitors was: «I did not think an exhibition could be this involving». They were not saying it despite the home lights. Perhaps because of them.

Rome – Church of Sant'Antonio dei Portoghesi

https://youtube.com/shorts/KZHbVOQgmJQ?si=fJcGicZmJt7Oc0F2

Molfetta – Sala dei Templari

https://youtube.com/shorts/SKtiV8vr7wk?si=G7-Fk8-yaSDw8cct

Visual communication in Molfetta since 1980: food labels, publishing, branding and territorial marketing. Industria Felix Award 2023.

A visual communication company founded at eighteen and still standing after forty-five years. From screen printing to publishing, from packaging to territorial marketing.

"Those young people who created a job for themselves"

That's what La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno called us. It was 1980. Stefano Salvemini and I were eighteen, with a worn screen-printing frame and very fresh ideas. We founded the Cooperativa L'Immagine in Molfetta together with Tonino, Giovanni, Saverio, Leo and Angelo, who left us shortly after, without knowing where it would take us. We invented the work ourselves. And when it didn't work, we kept at it until it did.

From screen printing we moved to art and advertising publishing, then to packaging for the food sector, to graphic design, to territorial marketing, to photography. Every step came from the curiosity to try something new and the stubbornness not to stop at the first obstacle. Obstacles, in forty-five years, were not lacking. Stefano is still here. It's not a detail, it means that when we decide to do something, we carry it through to the end. That's how it's worked since 1980.

What we do

We produce self-adhesive labels for the food sector, from olive oil cellars to wineries, from fruit and vegetables to bakery products. We create editorial and branding projects, books, catalogues and publications that turn a product or a territory into something you can leaf through, give as a gift, keep. And we build territorial marketing strategies for villages, destinations and networks of municipalities. Not off-the-shelf packages, every territory has its own story, and that's the one we tell.

Industria Felix Award 2023

In 2023, in Gallipoli, Editrice L'Immagine received the Industria Felix Award, in collaboration with Il Sole 24 Ore, as a company sound in management and reliable in financial terms within the cultural and tourism sector. Forty-five years of "inventing the work" didn't produce only ideas, but a company that holds up on the numbers too. The creative side shows straight away. The solid side shows when an award arrives that measures the balance sheets, not the intentions.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

A concrete vision to share. Inventing a job where there was none, starting from a screen-printing frame and eighteen years of age
Stubbornness as method. When something doesn't work, you keep at it until it does
Curiosity to reinvent yourself. From screen printing to publishing, to packaging, to territorial marketing, without stopping at what you already knew how to do
Perseverance of a two-person company. After forty-five years Stefano is still here, and that changes how you decide and how you see things through

What we learned

In forty-five years we changed trade more than once, but the lesson stayed one only. A job is something you can invent, as long as you're stubborn enough not to give up at the first no. We learned it together, the two of us. That's the reason we're still here.

Editoria e branding, https://www.editricelimmagine.it
Packaging ed etichette, https://www.etichettelimmagine.it