BR1 was born in Locri, Italy in 1984 and graduated in Islamic Law from the University of Turin Law School in 2009. He has practiced law since 2014, which leads him to focus on issues of migrants and the position of women both in contemporary Islamic society and in the Euro-Mediterranean area.
His work is primarily based on ephemeral actions in the urban context, almost always created in a spontaneous and off-limits way. Through specific interventions in the urban space — mainly presented as posters and installations — BR1 addresses the mass effect of commercial advertising on the identity of women and migrants from the Mediterranean area.
BR1 chooses to focus on the veil worn by women as a visual device and a watershed symbol between Western and Middle Eastern culture. When pasting up a drawing on a billboard, ripping out ads, or modifying their meaning, BR1 criticizes consumerism and aims to give social and cultural functions to billboards which, while lacking those, are imposed on society.
For him, art must transmit a social message and bring collective awareness. In every encounter, he looks for analogies between his own culture and the stranger's one, documenting collisions of cultures through portraiture that centers on meetings between the artist and strangers from the Mediterranean basin and inner Africa.
BR1 was selected at Manifesta 12 Biennale 2018 in Palermo and was one of the official artists of Matera European Capital of Culture 2019.
