A Moment Embodied - Nicky Conti

Original Photo_Robe-ling's Muse_36x48_portrait_edited.jpg

A Moment Embodied

Photography Reimagined as Couture

Rhythmmm presented A Moment Embodied exhibition on November 16-19th, 2025 at Saphira & Ventura Gallery in New York. The exhibition introduced Embodied Moments NYC, a new body of work by Maltese-born, New York–based artist Nicky Conti, in which fine art street photography is reimagined as couture.

Original Photo_Robe-ling's Muse_36x48_po

Each photograph in the project has been transformed into a one-of-a-kind garment, designed to echo the emotional and architectural essence of the New York location where it was originally captured. Created in collaboration with two fashion artisans, the work merges photographic memory, couture construction, and architectural dialogue into a single embodied form.

This preview exhibition presented one garment, ‘Robe-ling’, from the seven-piece collection alongside its original fine art photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge by night, on-location film, and a portrait of the garment worn in situ — completing the full cycle from image to form to lived moment.

The exhibition invited those who value the dialogue between medium, place, and process to consider how a moment can be truly embodied — when a photograph is no longer just seen but worn, when architecture becomes couture, and when memory steps into physical form.

Rooted in Rhythmmm’s interdisciplinary vision, the exhibition traced how artistic rhythm moves fluidly across mediums — from image to material, from architecture to the body. It transforms visual experience into spatial expression, merging design, emotion, and movement into a living form. Through this fusion, A Moment Embodied reflected Rhythmmm’s pursuit of transforming ideas into experiences and moments into inhabitable art — where creation becomes rhythm, and rhythm becomes life.

ARTIST:
Nicky Conti

CURATOR:

Maria T. Huang

EXECUTIVE CURATOR:

Sophia Yi Li

COLLABORATING ARTISTS:

Estelle Chatorrier — Pattern & Dressmaker

Sarah Esmoingt — Textile Embellishment Artist

Laur Loncar — On-Location Photographer

Emeline Lotherington — Videographer & Editor

Weronika Hawkins — Hair & Makeup Artist

Maltese fine art street photographer and multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Her work explores the geometry and rhythm of urban architecture, capturing fleeting moments where light transforms the city’s structures into quiet compositions of shadow and form. Through her project Embodied Moments NYC, Conti expands her photographic practice into couture, translating her images into wearable art and reintroducing them into the very landscapes that inspired them. Her work bridges photography, garment design and performance — transforming still imagery into embodied memory.