Don’t Stop Me Now

Palazzo Braschi hosts Don’t Stop Me Now, the exhibition that invites you to see photography through a different lens. Presented by Modelli si Nasce Onlus, the show highlights the energy of images and their ability to explore identity, emotion and transformation.

At its core is a dialogue between two distinct yet complementary artistic visions: Martin Mae and Francesco Brigida, featured respectively in the series Prima che tutto sia Mondo and Singular Flowers.

The works on display challenge the very idea of normality, encouraging viewers to question what is so often taken for granted. Between light and shadow, immediacy and stillness, a clear message emerges: photography can still surprise us, if we are willing to give it the time it deserves.

Perhaps that is the point: to leave the exhibition with fewer certainties, but with a sharper, more aware gaze.

Martin Mae

Martin Mae’s work begins with a disarmingly direct question: “Are you happy?” From this starting point unfolds a visual inquiry that deliberately avoids easy answers. Her photographs reject constructed happiness and predefined ideals, revealing instead complex, sometimes uncomfortable, yet deeply authentic emotional states. Light plays a central role — not merely as a technical tool, but as a language in its own right. It reveals and conceals, guiding the eye towards details that speak of fragility and strength at once. Her subjects do not strive to fit aesthetic standards; they present themselves as they are, free from labels and rigid definitions. The result is a visual narrative that resists drama, favouring instead a quiet, understated intimacy, where even emptiness becomes presence and meaning. The viewer is invited to step back from привычные habits and expectations, making space for a more personal and open interpretation.

Francesco Brigida

With Singular Flowers, Francesco Brigida takes an almost opposite approach. His images ask for time. They are not meant to be consumed at a glance, but rather to hold your attention and invite you to linger. His portraits engage with both the history of photography and painting, evoking stripped-back, essential atmospheres where anything superfluous disappears. What remains are faces, gazes, gestures — fragments of a story that unfolds slowly. A subtle distance exists between photographer and subject: a space that does not separate, but instead allows meaning to surface. It is within this distance that a genuine relationship takes shape, built on trust and attentiveness. Brigida does not impose a narrative; he receives it. And the viewer, in turn, becomes part of this exchange, invited to enter carefully into a world that does not reveal itself all at once.