MEET and the birth of the Digital Art Gallery in Gorizia

One thousand square meters of LED surface transform the historic Galleria Bombi into a permanent immersive environment, accessible free of charge starting December 16, 2025. The inaugural work is Data Tunnel by Refik Anadol, which will occupy the space for one year.

MEET’s role: cultural brokerage for public digital art

MEET oversaw the artistic direction and relations with Refik Anadol Studio, in close collaboration with the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region. This role stems from a specific gamble made five years ago. In 2020, when Maria Grazia Mattei inaugurated the MEET Digital Culture Center in Milan, digital art in Italy still lacked an institutional space. The decision to bring Anadol to Renaissance Dreams, a permanent site-specific installation in the center’s spaces, is a clear statement. It demonstrates that immersive technological languages can engage with a wide audience without losing their complexity, and that the aesthetic experience can act as a bridge in resolving crucial cultural issues.

From cultural space to public infrastructure

Five years later, the gamble has paid off in the form of GAD. The journey from Milan to Gorizia is an amplification: from a cultural space dedicated to permanent public infrastructure, from a curatorial choice to an institutional investment. And above all, from an audience seeking an experience to a community that passes through an immersive environment on a daily basis. The Galleria Bombi, an Austro-Hungarian infrastructure, a refuge during the First World War, a symbol of a city marked by borders, becomes a place where historical stratification dialogues with technological vision.

Data Tunnel uses the Large Nature Model developed by Anadol Studio, an AI system trained on proprietary environmental datasets. The work highlights the relationship between artificial intelligence and the distributed intelligence of ecosystems, transforming raw information into organic forms that continuously evolve along the tunnel’s vault. For Gorizia, a city that this year embodies the no borders theme of GO!2025, the work takes on symbolic significance: what unites us beyond divisions? The answer lies in the shared beauty of the planet we inhabit.

MEET’s role in the GAD project was that of cultural brokerage. In other words, facilitating dialogue between the creative autonomy of Refik Anadol Studio and local institutions.

An investment in building cultural capacity

The Friuli Venezia Giulia Region has invested €4.55 million in permanent infrastructure. This choice demonstrates a desire to build cultural capacity in the area through works that remain and change the urban experience in the long term. Digital art operates here in the same way as frescoes in Renaissance churches: it transforms existing architecture into environments where the community can come together, where the aesthetic experience becomes part of the collective memory. The GAD is a permanent laboratory.

Visiting GAD means encountering the evolution of an intuition that took shape five years ago in Milan. Returning to MEET, where Renaissance Dreams continues to engage with the public, allows us to reconstruct the genesis of this journey and understand how a cultural gamble has been transformed into a replicable model.

GAD – Digital Art Gallery
Galleria Bombi, Gorizia
Opening: middle december 2025
Data Tunnel by Refik Anadol
Free entrance

MEET Digital Culture Center
Viale Vittorio Veneto 2, Milano
Renaissance Dreams by Refik Anadol – permanent artwork
Every tuesday – from 3.00 to 7.00 p.m.
Book your ticket

A project by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, PromoTurismoFVG, Municipality of Gorizia, Edr, Erpac FVG, Ministry of Culture
Artistic direction: MEET Digital Culture Center