Airports have a key role to play in championing a city’s or country’s craft, culture, tastes and traditions. For visitors they offer the first and last impression of the locality, for that city’s citizens they provide a source of civic pride. An arts & culture programme connects passengers to a place in the same way an airport connects them to the world. Many airport companies embrace that role with pride and passion as we explore in our regular column.
ITALY. SEA Milan Airports has unveiled a photo exhibition featuring the work of acclaimed contemporary photographer Steve McCurry at Milan Malpensa Airport, offering a cultural experience during the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games.
The World in Motion – Malpensa’ is on display at the Terminal 1 check-in area throughout the Winter Olympic (6-22 February) and Paralympic Games (6-15 March), showcasing a premium artistic experience developed in the months leading up to the Games.
The exhibition underscores Milan Airport’s role as a key gateway connecting Milan and Lombardy to the world, serving 219 destinations in 84 countries.
Steve McCurry said: “Black and white eliminates distractions, it strips the image down to its essence: expression, gesture, presence. In this project, colour felt superfluous. What matters is the human face, suspended in a moment of transition.
“An airport is a place where identity, for a moment, loosens its grip. People are between roles, between places, between lives.
“In that suspension, something profoundly authentic emerges: regardless of where we come from or where we are going, we share the same fragile and universal condition. For a moment, we are all simply human.”
McCurry underlined photography’s role in creating equality – when context, status and geography are removed, the camera observes without judgment, neutral backgrounds erasing hierarchy and giving each subject an equal presence.
SEA Milan Airports CEO Armando Brunini said: “With The World in Motion, SEA strengthens Malpensa’s role as the country’s international gateway in view of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games.
“Malpensa confirms itself not only as a strategic infrastructure, but as a place of encounter, culture, and dialogue among peoples, fully aligned with the Olympic spirit.
“We wanted to bring Steve McCurry’s art into the airport to offer passengers a unique and exclusive exhibition consistent with the universal and Olympic values that unite travel, sport, and art: respect, equality, humanity, excellence, and friendship.
“This initiative is part of our broader journey towards inclusion and the enhancement of travel spaces as places of connection and culture.”
The exhibition transforms the airport flow into a poetic reflection on global connection, reimagining the terminal as a space of openness, sharing and the continuous exchange of stories and destinations.
McCurry added: “What struck me most were the smiles even the fleeting ones. In departures, people carry anticipation with them: sometimes relief, sometimes nostalgia, sometimes joy.
“I photographed faces a moment before they entered a new chapter, and in those smiles there was a deeply human openness. But there is also great vulnerability when people are on the move. Travel exposes us to fatigue, hope, uncertainty. It is a profoundly human state.”
More than a journey between places, travel is a meeting of people, and Steve McCurry highlights the airport as a platform where connections come to life.
Rather than travelling, McCurry brought the world to his lens, capturing passengers in the pre-flight moment through intense black-and-white portraits that highlight their “suspended humanity.”
Curator Biba Giacchetti said: “Malpensa, a crossroads of destinies and geographies, becomes the stage for an unprecedented human fresco.
“This time, it will not be Steve McCurry travelling to remote peoples, as he has done for decades, telling their stories in every corner of the planet. Instead, the peoples of the world will pass before his lens, in that suspended instant before a flight, in an airport that is itself already a global microcosm.”
Through black-and-white portraits and neutral settings, McCurry highlighted the equality of human encounters, placing each subject’s story in clear focus.
The photo shoot brought together participants from different countries, capturing spontaneous and authentic moments.
Giacchetti said: “It was moving to witness the trust and joy of those who offered themselves for a portrait. Each face contains a story, a fragment of the world. Together, these portraits form a universal mosaic of differences that become harmony.
“As in the Olympic spirit, each face portrayed is a torch passed from hand to hand, igniting the hope that beauty, curiosity, and mutual understanding remain the most powerful language we possess.” ✈
