On the post-industrial outskirts of Milan stands a vast open-air concert arena, a place widely known across the city for what happens at night.

Anyone who grew up nearby, like me, knows it well.

During the day, however, the space changes. The stage structure remains, but the audience disappears. The arena empties out and becomes a large urban space shaped by silence.

In these hours, young people arrive. They sit, lie down, lean against the structures. Some stop briefly, others stay for the entire afternoon. Here, being present does not mean being seen. This is why I keep returning as well.

I was born in a city where the industrial landscape never truly disappeared, continuing to shape ways of living even after the factories closed. This led me to reflect on the gap between the legacy a place carries and what happens when its function ceases or is suspended.

When the lights are off, the arena appears as a kind of no man’s land free from the logic of performance, consumption and expected forms of sociality, where provisional forms of presence become possible.

In this ongoing body of work, begun in 2024, I continue to reflect on the contradiction between emptiness and presence, looking beyond identity to what people experience in this truce, before the show begins again.