July 10th, 2026 — Tunisian visual artist and Civitella alum Mouna Karray arrives at the Castle tomorrow, nearly 20 years after her residency in 2007, to photograph the women she met in Umbria during her stay.
In her own words, “‘Identity at Stake’,” as the series is called, “is a long-life project that consists of meeting women, taking photographs of them in their own environment and then photographing myself in their environment, adopting their gestures and their way of dressing.”
“In this act of substitution,” she writes, “I take the risk of coming as close as possible to the identity of the other. Through this smooth metamorphosis, I combine the two identities at stake…”
Mouna began the project in France, where she now lives, and in Tunisia in 2006. While at Civitella, she met and photographed a number of women in their homes—the ones you see here. The photos taken in these three countries, formed a series of diptychs that were exhibited at the MAMA museum in Algiers in 2008, at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris in 2009, and became part of the NADOUR collection in Germany.
2026 marks the bicentennial of photography and 20 years since she began this long term project. Now, we welcome her return to Civitella to revive it by photographing of the same women 20 years later, as well as new women.
