Andrea Socrati.
The national contemporary art scene can finally benefit from evocative and unprecedented stimuli, thanks to a unique initiative promoted by the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity (DGCC) of the Ministry of Culture and the Omero State Tactile Museum.
We are talking about the Omero Prize, aimed at established artists in the contemporary art world. They are invited to introduce or expand a new perspective on creative practice, and consequently, on how artwork is experienced.
The goal of the prize, in perfect harmony with the philosophy of the Omero Museum, is to stimulate and support original, multisensory, and inclusive artistic proposals able of broadening access to cultural content.
For the first edition published on July 15, 2025, the call achieved great success closing on September 30, 2025, with a total of 114 applications.
A Committee composed of experts from various sectors determined the winner of the 1st edition of the Omero Prize: the artist Alberto Tadiello with his work RMN – Risonanza Magnetica Nucleare (NMR- Nuclear Magnetic Resonance).
The members of the Committee demonstrated notable commitment in carefully examining and evaluating the numerous works. This evaluation requires adopting a different point of view much like the one required by the artists themselves. Now, the aesthetic value of the artwork passes through the values expressed by each individual sensory channel starting with the tactile channel.
Based on the experience of the Omero Museum, visually impaired individuals taught us how important the contribution of touch is and how much information, stimulation, and suggestion it can provide. Therefore, experiencing an artwork by touch not only allows blind individuals to know and enjoy beauty but also offers everyone, without distinction, a new and richer aesthetic experience.
Tactile Aesthetics: Texture, Temperature, Affectivity
We must not forget that certain aspects of reality can be perceived only through the tactile channel, such as the texture of an object, its temperature and the characteristics of its material and surface. We must also remember that touch is present all over our body, both externally and internally, allowing a direct and intimate relationship with the artistic object. Finally, we must not miss the affective aspect, an important component of the aesthetic experience, which finds its ultimate expression in physical contact.
It goes without saying that using the tactile channel in artistic practice, both in production and reception, requires careful reflection on tactile methods and values, thorough organization, and therefore, true education.
The education of touch was already discussed in 1921 by the leader of Futurism, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), in his manifesto Il Tattilismo (Tactilism). Marinetti writes that he subjected his sense of touch to an “intensive treatment” with the aim of achieving “great tactile virtue,” and that he created an educational scale of touch and a scale of tactile values to be used in the creations of what he defines “Art of Touch”.
During that same period, we can recall the educational experiences of sensory training carried out at the Bauhaus the school of artistic instruction founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius.
Taking into account all the matters just illustrated regarding the value of multisensory and tactility, the Evaluation Committee, as provided by the call for entries, identified three finalist artists admitted to the second phase of evaluation: Francesca Grilli with “The Conversation” “(2010), Rachele Maistrello with “The Silent World” (2022-2023) and Alberto Tadiello with “RMN – Risonanza Magnetica Nucleare” (2005).
From February 5, 2026, the three finalists were presented in a digital exhibition accessible on the websites of the Generali Directorate for Contemporary Creativity and the Omero Museum with the purpose of narrating and promoting them through images, texts, audio descriptions and videos.
Multisensory and Contemporary Creativity
The selected works propose artistic experiences involving the body, sound, touch, and spatial perception. The Committee recognized a strong and original multisensory component in the artworks, combined with a conscious and innovative use of the languages of contemporary creativity in full harmony with the aims of the Prize and the criteria established by the call for entries.
With Three Finalists and One Winner Toward the Second Edition of the Prize
At the conclusion of the Committee’s second evaluation phase, the winner was announced on February 24. As previously mentioned, he is Alberto Tadiello. The artist from Vicenza (Montecchio Maggiore (VI) 1983) lives and works in a former bakery at the foot of the Dolomites. He graduated in “Visual Arts Planning and Production” from the IUAV University of Venice and held various solo and group exhibitions both in Italy and abroad, as well as participating in numerous residency programs.
The winning work RMN, an acronym for Risonanza Magnetica Nucleare (NMR Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) and Rete Mareografica Nazionale (National Tide Network), is a sound installation created in Venice in 2005. As the artist says, RMN is an invisible yet physically perceptible sculpture realized through the dissemination of low frequencies in the space that hosts itself. The vibrations are emitted by two subwoofers which, through a decoding system, translate tide levels in real time. A specially programmed system connected to the center of the National Tide Network updates every 30 seconds, tuning and modulating the intensity of the sound production. RMN can be imagined as a low-frequency radio station using the meteorological mast of the port of Ancona as its antenna, constantly capturing the local behavior of the tides.
These vibrations, characterized by long wavelengths, create ephemeral volumes depending on how they add together or subtract from one another. Their perception occurs primarily through internal body cavities, such as the stomach, head and bones, and stimulates the proprioceptive system. The artwork penetrates and resonates tacitly within the viewer’s body, creating a physical connection with them while simultaneously placing them in a direct relationship with the surrounding marine environment.
The only sculptural detail is a double metallic filament, a free reimagining of a hydrographic curve line, which redraws the space like a guiding line leading viewers into an empty architecture filled with energy, shaped by sound.
The internal space of the museum lives in a symbiotic relationship with external natural forces and translates all their patterns and nuances into sound frequencies, like a seismographic score that is different every day. For a moment, one finds oneself immersed revealing an energy that, beyond the senses, pervades our daily lives and is constitutive of a deep human cyclicality and biorhythm.
RMN stands as a dynamic entity in constant transformation and in relation to the movement and presence of the audience. It takes on meaning only for the presence of a spectator who perceives and interprets it becoming an active part of the process themselves. The body becomes a responsible participant that interferes and interacts with the propagation of frequencies, further shaping the forms created by the sound.
Finally, there is imaginative potential that the project sets. Evoking a distance, a geophysical expansion, the movement of enormous masses of water, a connection between museum and city, between inside and outside, between nature and artifice, the artwork generates a tension of concepts and images. They are abstract and become deeply subjective and carriers of an intimate possibility of interpretation.
“Indifferent” to visual impairment, the near-total invisibility of the work cancels out any sensorial hierarchy: beyond the eyes, ears, fingertips, or lips, it is perceived with the internal voids of the body; it is experienced by bringing one’s own body.
In conclusion, we are pleased to announce that the 2nd edition of the Omero Prize is already underway; through the themes of multisensory, tactility, and inclusion, we can contribute to fueling and stimulating reflections and new contemporary creative methods.