Every year in November, Turin goes into contemporary art overdrive with a number of exhibitions ranging from Artissima — and its edgier cousin Paratissima — to Luci d’Artista, creative light art installations that are much more than just Christmas lights. Actually, they aren’t Christmas lights at all, so we’re told. It has to be said, the themes aren’t particularly Christmassy. For example, Migrazione (Climate Change) by Piero Gilardi is a composition of pelicans migrating in flight across Galleria San Federico, just off Turin’s main artery Via Roma.

It lights up the space in a fusion of blues, yellows, and reds. While definitely not a Christmas theme, the pelican is said to be a Christian symbol of Christ sacrificing himself for man. Conceptualized here, and with an even obscurer reference to climate change, Gilardi has highlighted the damage humans have been enacting on our planet through this illumination that was originally created in 2015. Maybe Christ shouldn’t have bothered, is perhaps the point being made here.