Non tutto è come sembra (in english: Not Everything Is What It Seems) is the title of the site-specific intervention created by the Roman collective Sbagliato for the breakwater of the port of Scauri, in Pantelleria. Eleven portholes, each two meters in diameter, open unexpected passages in the compact mass of volcanic stones, projecting the eye toward an elsewhere made of marine horizons, distant shores, and imaginary connections. It is an installation that transforms a functional infrastructure into a portal, an invitation to look beyond appearances and to reconnect with the magical dimension of the landscape.
The project was born during a site inspection on the island, when the group’s attention was caught by an inscription on Gaddafi’s former hotel: “Not everything is what it seems.” From that moment, the seed took root and took shape on the breakwater, with the intention of lightening its visual presence and transforming it into a device of vision. The portholes become openings onto a sea that is not only that of Pantelleria but also that of Rome Fiumicino, the artists’ place of origin, in a play of references that unites distant places yet close to the heart.
Behind this vision lies the poetics of Sbagliato, a collective founded in 2011 by three Roman architects and designers. Their research moves between architecture, graphics, and collage, with the desire to create interferences in the urban fabric, opening gaps and new perspectives where the rigid order of architecture reigns. Their interventions, often ephemeral, live in public space as fractures that generate disorientation but also perceptual enrichment.
In Pantelleria, the setting is the Collina di Loredana, a cultural association founded in 2022 to enhance the island’s heritage through dialogue with international artists. In this sculpture park that preserves more than thirty years of visions, the arrival of Sbagliato and their Not Everything Is What It Seems adds a precious piece: a work that will remain visible until October, destined to amaze inhabitants and travelers with a message as simple as it is radical — reality is never only what it appears to be.
