BE KIND – Arte indifesa | Alessandro Ferraro and Betterpress

ARTE INDIFESA – BE KIND
A project by Alessandro Ferraro in collaboration with Betterpress

For Rome Art Week 2026, Betterpress presents Arte indifesa – Be kind, a project by Alessandro Ferraro developed in collaboration with Francesca Colonia and Giulia Nicolai / Betterpress.

The project reflects on kindness as an attitude towards others and a way of inhabiting the world. Drawing on Japanese haiku in previously unpublished English versions by poet and translator Martin Wilmot Bennett, Alessandro Ferraro created a series of original watercolours in which the immediacy of gesture and image meets that of poetic form.

We created hand lettering for the watercolours, composing the verses with original vintage Letraset dry-transfer lettering. Letter by letter, the text enters the surface of the works, moving through their spaces, pauses and shapes, engaging with the images and becoming part of them.

The resulting compositions were digitised and reproduced as 21 posters measuring 70 × 100 cm. We then hand-printed the title on each poster using movable type, adding a unique typographic intervention to every reproduction.

From 19 to 25 October, the 21 posters will be temporarily displayed in different outlying neighbourhoods of Rome, following a circular route that crosses and symbolically embraces the city. Exposed in public space and entrusted for a few days to the presence and care of local residents, the works take on a deliberately temporary and unprotected condition.

Betterpress Studio is also a stop on this dispersed exhibition: one of the 21 posters will be displayed outside the space, connecting the route across the city with the place where the collaboration took shape.

Each installation will be photographed and geolocated through #arteindifesa-map and accompanied by a QR code offering further information about the project. All posters will be removed at the end of Rome Art Week.

A project by Alessandro Ferraro
In collaboration with Betterpress
Typographic intervention: Francesca Colonia and Giulia Nicolai / Betterpress
English versions of the haiku: Martin Wilmot Bennett
Digital printing: Pioda Imaging
Digital printing supervision: Enrico Natoli