Art Destinations

• Ep 4: Vito Planeta on contemporary art, wine and Sicily

  In this episode, we speak with Vito Planeta, who is shaping the cultural direction of Planeta Wineries by building on the vision of his late uncle, the winemaker and cultural advocate Vito Planeta (1966–2023). Together, they shared a belief in the connection between land, wine and contemporary art. We discuss how the family’s estates across Sicily have become active sites for cultural engagement through the Culture for the Territory program, which commissions visual art, performance, music and literature. From a lakeside library dedicated to the late Vito to artworks embedded across five vineyard sites, Planeta Wineries is reframing the role of wine production in the cultural life of the island. The conversation also explores the challenges of sustainability, the responsibilities of legacy, and how art can shift perceptions of Sicily from periphery to cultural centre.    

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• Ep 3: Elisa Giardina Papa on Sicilian myth and the Venice Biennale

  We are in conversation with Sicilian artist and scholar Elisa Giardina Papa whose practice explores subjects that resist definition. Elisa lives and works between New York and Sant’Ignazio, Sicily, and teaches Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. She was one of the artists invited by curator Cecilia Alemani to exhibit in the main international exhibition of the 59th Venice Art Biennale in 2022, The Milk of Dreams. Our conversation delves into the first two works in her trilogy set in Sicily—installations that blend myth, memory, and submerged histories, both literal and metaphorical. In She Flickered In and Out of History, Elisa explores the story of a short-lived volcanic island that emerged between Tunisia and Sicily in 1831. Claimed by various European powers before disappearing beneath the sea just five months later, the island becomes a symbol of ungovernability and resistance to imperialism. We also discuss U Scantu: A Disorderly Tale, presented at the Venice Biennale 2022, which reimagines the mythic figure of the Donna di Fora—queer, multispecies women healers—drawing on both oral folklore and Inquisition archives. Set against the backdrop of the postmodern town of Gibellina, the work brings together sonic street culture, ceramics, and archival fragments to challenge how histories are told. Elisa reflects on her Sicilian upbringing, the layered cultural influences of the island, and her interest in forms of knowledge that defy categorisation. Together we explore what it means to live, think, and create on the edges — where ground shifts, language carries memory and stories flicker in and out of view.    

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• Ep 2: Alfio Puglisi on how SARP is transforming Sicily into a global hub for contemporary art

  Alfio Puglisi in conversation with podcast host Sarah Rhodes on how the Sicily Artist in Residence Program (SARP) is transforming Sicily into a global hub for contemporary art through site-specific residencies, local collaboration, and atmospheric place-making. In this wide-ranging conversation, Sarah Rhodes speaks with the podcast’s co-producer Alfio Puglisi — founder of the Sicily Artist in Residence Program (SARP) — about returning to his ancestral home on the slopes of Mount Etna to forge a new vision for contemporary art in Sicily. Alfio shares his remarkable journey: from studying economics and the digital economy and society at King’s College London to teaching in Lisbon, and ultimately leaving behind a secure academic career to pursue something more entrepreneurial and creatively rooted. That shift led him back to Linguaglossa, where he transformed his family’s 17th-century palazzo into a living museum, restaurant, contemporary gallery and residency program. Through SARP, Alfio brings together international and local artists, offering them space, support, and time to develop site-responsive work. The program emphasises collaboration with local artisans, curators, and Sicilian production facilities, ensuring that exhibitions are deeply embedded in place. These are not parachute residencies, but long-form engagements that invite artists to slow down, adapt, and attune to Sicily’s layered histories and landscapes. Together, they discuss: The personal and political significance of returning home to begin again Why Sicily’s “peripheral” location may actually be a place of focus and clarity for artists The interplay between cultural memory, atmospheric conditions, and contemporary creative practice The red Saharan rain that settles each spring on Sicilian gardens — and how this meteorological phenomenon became the digital pigment for new photographic work by Andre Hemer How Alfio’s vision for SARP builds on both inherited history and future-facing cultural networks The growing community of creatives — many returning from cities like London, Paris, and Berlin — who are reshaping Sicily’s role in the international art conversation This episode offers a meditation on place, return and reinvention. As Alfio says, Sicily’s position at the centre of the Mediterranean offers not just geography, but perspective — a place to think, to feel, and to make without distraction. Listen in as we reflect on the links between atmosphere and art-making, the value of community and continuity, and how peripheral places can become sites of deep cultural transformation.          

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• Ep 1: Sicily season premiere

  In this premiere episode of Art Destinations Sicily, we introduce the artists and key themes that will be explored in season. We look at how artists engage with the layered geographies of Sicily — a place shaped by ancient myths, volcanic terrain, and a complex cultural inheritance. Through residencies and site-responsive projects, the artists featured in this season reveal how creative practice emerges from deep entanglements with land, memory, and material. Our conversations begin with this podcast’s co-producer and Sicily Artist-in Residence Program (SARP) director Alfio Puglisi. And then we have the privilege of meeting Elisa Giardina Papa (Italy’s Venice Biennale 2022 artist), Vito Planeta (Planeta Wines), Irene Coppola (artist and Spaziomateria, Palermo), Francesco Vullo (artist), Claudio Gulli (art historian, Palazzo Butero, Palermo), Hanna Burkart (artist), Aurora Passero (artist) and Alessandro Giorgi (artist).   The key ideas are: Collaborating with Place The Sicilian landscape—particularly Mount Etna—acts not merely as a backdrop but as an active force shaping artistic practice. Across episodes, artists respond to the island’s geology, climate, and topography as both medium and subject.   Reimagining Cultural Identity Artists explore Sicily’s layered histories, myths, and social taboos to question and reframe local identity. Folklore, symbolism, and personal narratives are reinterpreted through contemporary lenses to address belonging, memory, and transformation.   3. A Return to Materiality There is a strong return to material practices—textiles, volcanic rock, pigment, and site-specific installation—as a way to connect past and present. This material sensibility serves as a tactile bridge between tradition and experimentation.   4. Peripheral Networks and Global Dialogue Sicily’s perceived peripherality fosters a fertile ground for international collaboration. Through residencies and projects like SARP, artists from diverse backgrounds engage with the island to generate new models of exchange, intimacy, and creative dwelling.   The Sicily season reveals that working from the edge — whether spatially or culturally — creates rich opportunities to rethink place, practice, and belonging. Artists in this season treat the island not only as a site, but as a way of being. We hope you enjoy this season of Art Destinations Sicily. Each episode is released fortnightly. Subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on your preferred listening platform. such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and explore the visual works of our guests via @artdestinations.podcast on Instagram.

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• Ep 12: Reflecting on the Lutruwita Tasmania season

  We reflect on the Art Destinations Lutruwita | Tasmania season in a wrap-up episode that draws links between the 10 artists and writers in conversationacross the episodes. We also draw parallels between season 1 Venice and season 2 Lutruwita | Tasmania. World leading philosopher on place Jeff Malpas lays the foundation for the Lutruwita | Tasmania season as his conversation frames the role of place in thinking. We examine how artists’ practices are shaped by cultural memory and the natural environment. In this episode we cover: : examine art as activism from the perspectives of Matthew Newton, David Stephenson and Raymond Arnold, the role of isolation in forming a connection with nature, building community and finding resonances interationally as shared through the work of Troy Ruffels, Zoe Grey and Ellen Dahl, imagination and place through Pat Brassington’s surreal works explore feminist themes while reflecting an imagined sense of place, stories that give access to isolated worlds through Adam Thompson’s short stories based on his Indigenous culture and Lisa Garland’s stories behind the portraits of her North-West Coast community, and we draw parallels between the Venice and Lutruwita | Tasmania seasons. In Venice, artists embrace marginality as a strength, collaborating on smaller islands in the lagoon to reimagine shared spaces. In Tasmania, geographical isolation inspires self-reflection and deep connection with the natural world. In summary, being on the edge—geographically, culturally, or conceptually—offers unique opportunities for reflection, innovation, and meaningful engagement with place and environment. We explore how art thrives in these peripheral spaces.

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