Within Politecnico di Milano’s ReverseLab project Chiara Ligi developed an immersive experience inside San Vittore Prison in Milan.
LA STANZA DELLA MEMORIA (The Memory Room)
With intention to preserve and reimagine the historical memory of San Vittore, The Memory Room is a living, evolving space — an immersive environment conceived to host and question the layered traces of the prison.
Not a static archive, but a porous, resonant place where images, sounds, and voices interact with one another, forming a collective and ever-changing memory.
At its core lies “Diary of a Transformation”, a video installation created by Chiara Ligi through photogrammetry that documents the metamorphosis of the basement — once abandoned, now transformed into a place of cultural production. The act of documenting becomes an act of care: a slow gesture of recovery that gives shape to an environment capable of remembering and transforming.
SOUND INSTALLATIONS
In dialogue with the artist Maurice Pefura’s site-specific installation, Chiara created a series of sound installations that extends the reflection on the relationship between body, space, and lived experience. While Pefura’s piece occupies the central corridor as a fragmented urban landscape, the adjacent former cells resonate with the sounds of prison life and the voices of people detained in San Vittore — echoes returning to the present.
The first sound environment recreates the acoustic density of the Young Adults’ Unit, two floors above: gates creaking, footsteps, metal doors slamming, shouted voices. In San Vittore, silence does not exist — sound is constant, material, inescapable. This installation invites listeners to step, even briefly, into the sonic intensity of confinement.
Further along the corridor, four cells host audio installations developed from the testimonies of participants in the ReverseLab workshop. Recorded between June and July 2024, the voices reflect on memory, fear, identity, and hope, forming four narrative constellations: “Désolé maman,” “Sole, dove sei?,” “Ho perso la luna,” and “Non spegnere la luce.”
Each cell becomes a thematic space where personal stories and collective reflection intertwine — from the inner turmoil of guilt and vulnerability, to the shock of incarceration, the repetition of daily routines, and the fragile hope of a future beyond the walls.
The sound design maintains an intimate and reflective tone, allowing pauses, breaths, and ambient noises to shape the depth of listening. The voices alternate and overlap, revealing contradictions and resonances without seeking harmony. What emerges is a choral experience that mirrors the complexity of prison life — a polyphony of perspectives that coexist, collide, and remain open.
