{ "id": 18549, "date": "2025-09-15T10:28:06", "date_gmt": "2025-09-15T08:28:06", "guid": { "rendered": "https:\/\/athletamag.com\/?p=18549" }, "modified": "2025-09-19T14:11:08", "modified_gmt": "2025-09-19T12:11:08", "slug": "its-a-w-e-i-r-d-world", "status": "publish", "type": "post", "link": "https:\/\/athletamag.com\/en\/its-a-w-e-i-r-d-world\/", "title": { "rendered": "IT\u2019S A W.E.I.R.D. WORLD" }, "content": { "rendered": "

After a long artist residency in Japan, Nicol\u00f2 Rinaldi\u2019s photographic lens captures the subtle rhyme between the \u201cweirdness\u201d that guided his gaze and Japan\u2019s deep-rooted passion for baseball<\/span><\/h2><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>

What does it mean to experience a place seemingly designed to replicate\u2014or reimagine\u2014an idea of nature? And how does one\u2019s perception shift when every element in the landscape, from tropical gardens to planetariums to owls, appears as an artificial version of something that should feel spontaneous?<\/span><\/p>\n

These are the questions at the core of W.E.I.R.D., Nicol\u00f2 Rinaldi\u2019s photographic project developed during his residency in Japan. It explores the many ways in which contemporary humans attempt to reconstruct, control, or aestheticize the natural world.<\/b> It\u2019s a visual inquiry that doesn\u2019t settle for critique alone\u2014it leaves space for disorientation, perceptual ambiguity, and a kind of fascination with the artificial.<\/span><\/p>\n

Along this path\u2014leading up to an exhibition scheduled in Palazzo Ducale of Genoa from November 11 to 23\u2014Rinaldi also encountered something that seemed to exist on a different level of reflection: that of sport, or more precisely, of sports culture as a collective ritual. <\/span>Baseball, though technically an \u2018imported\u2019 sport, reveals itself as a near-sacred, deeply internalized presence in Japan\u2019s urban fabric.<\/b><\/p>\n

In this dialogue between photography, social observation, and visual memory, simulated nature and hybridized culture intersect in a narrative that cuts through the layers of contemporary Japanese everyday life. <\/b>The result is a lateral, precise, and deeply human gaze on a world that, strangely enough, often feels more real than reality itself.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>