PMI Photo EnterPrize 2026 is a project promoted by the Art and Culture Working Group of the Small Industry Committee of Confindustria Bergamo, created to foster dialogue between the world of SMEs and the world of art, while enhancing business culture.
The third edition, entitled “Relationships. Where the Image Begins”, placed the focus on the connections between people, skills, technologies, materials and production processes. Through photography, the company becomes significant not only for what it produces, but also for what it represents: a living system shaped every day by gestures, collaborations, memory and visions of the future.
IMEX and the language of manufacturing
Within the Art and Culture Working Group, alongside Simona Bonaldi, project manager, Claudia Sartirani and Giuseppe Taramelli, Giulia Ghidini, Production Director at IMEX, is also involved.
IMEX’s participation stems from a vision deeply connected to the company’s own nature: that of a manufacturing business where the product is not merely the final result of a process, but the concrete expression of skills, relationships and daily responsibilities.
The perspective Giulia Ghidini brings to the project is that of someone who experiences the factory from within, in constant contact with materials, people, production organization and customer needs.
For IMEX, manufacturing is a true form of language: it communicates through making, attention to detail, the transformation of materials and the precision of gestures. Photography, too, builds a language: it makes visible the intelligence of processes, the relationship between people and technologies, and everything that lies behind the creation of a product.
It is in this encounter between factory and image that IMEX recognizes the value of PMI Photo EnterPrize 2026. Bringing business and art closer together means opening up new ways of interpreting production and building relationships capable of extending beyond the boundaries of the factory, involving schools, institutions and cultural organizations across the local area.
Five young female artists inside Bergamo’s businesses
The project involved the Politecnico delle Arti di Bergamo and the Accademia di Belle Arti G. Carrara, under the artistic guidance of Francesco Pedrini, artist, lecturer and former director of the Academy.
The five selected female artists – Camilla Aprile, Nicole Locatelli, Valeria Olivo, Erika Ungari and Yuliya Vladkovska – entered five companies in the local area to observe their spaces, materials, processes and relationships, transforming the experience into a personal photographic research project.
The companies involved were C.R. Technology Systems Spa, Calzificio M. Bresciani Srl, Monaci Demolizioni Speciali Srl, Iterchimica Spa and Taramelli Srl. The works created explored different themes: the language of electrical circuits, generational continuity, the relationship between nature and transformation, the memory of matter, and the dialogue between design precision and real space.
The winner is Nicole Locatelli with the work “The Road You Cannot See Is Made by Walking”, developed within Calzificio M. Bresciani. The project stems from the observation of the gestures, materials and habits that characterize the life of the hosiery company. The socks, arranged on wooden boards, become signs of order, care and continuity, creating a kind of visual language inspired by Braille writing.
The work reflects on the relationship between manual labour and technology, between past and future, portraying a family business in which the product’s identity takes shape through gestures handed down over time. The jury rewarded its ability to transform photography from simple representation into a tool of meaning, capable of evoking what remains beyond the visible.
From the workshop to the exhibition in the heart of Bergamo
The journey also included the workshop “Journey to Cosberg City”, led by photographer Filippo Romano inside Cosberg Spa. The participants were invited to go beyond traditional industrial photography, observing machines and production structures as complex architectures, similar to futuristic cities suspended between memory, movement and innovation.
The awards ceremony took place on July 9 at the Monastero del Carmine, in Bergamo’s Città Alta, where the works remained on display until July 12. The exhibition marked the culmination of a shared journey involving artists, companies, lecturers, the jury and the Art and Culture Working Group.
Business, product and local culture
For IMEX, this experience is an opportunity to present manufacturing as a place of relationships, vision and responsibility. Through the production of picture frame mouldings, the company gives shape every day to work made of materials, skills, processes and people.
PMI Photo EnterPrize 2026 thus becomes a natural bridge between business, art and territory, showing how even an industrial product can contribute to the creation of a shared culture.