Fellows Profile

Received Sylff fellowship in 2025
Current affiliation : Istituto di Formazione Politica "Pedro Arrupe" - Centro di studi sociali

I am currently a Teaching Assistant at the Department of Culture and Society (University of Palermo) and at the Università LUMSA - Libera Università Maria Ss. Assunta (Rome). I'm also a Sylff Fellow conducting research at the Pedro Arrupe Institute of Political Education. After a one-year postdoctoral fellowship within the PRIN 2022 project COLTA – Collectives at the Table, I have expanded my focus from conviviality and collective practices to issues of urban marginality and cultural heritage. My current project, "Homelessness and Counter-Mapping of Palermo’s Cultural Heritage", investigates how marginalized perspectives challenge institutional narratives and explores participatory models of inclusion through visual and narrative cartographies.
I hold a B.A. in Communication, Languages and Culture from the University of Siena and an M.A. in Semiotics from the University of Bologna. In 2024, I earned my Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at the University of Palermo with a dissertation on the semiotic legacy of Louis Marin, analyzing the relationship between political power and visual representation.
I have carried out research at the Centre d’histoire et théorie des arts (CEHTA/CRAL, EHESS Paris) and have been an Associate Fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max Planck Institut, within the Erasmus+ project GAP. Graffiti Art in Prison. I am a member of CROSS – Centro di Ricerca Omar Calabrese di Semiotica e Scienze dell’Immagine (Universities of Siena, Bologna, and Venice-IUAV) and serve on the editorial board of Carte Semiotiche, where I have been editorial secretary since 2022. I regularly present at international conferences and publish in journals on visual culture, semiotics, and image theory, with a particular interest in the intersections between cultural heritage, marginality, and political representation.