La Forma del Calore (The Shape of Heat), a project by Exhibit Around APS, tackles one of the central challenges of climate communication: not the lack of data, but the difficulty of reading it.

The project focuses on heatwaves in Friuli Venezia Giulia, a growing phenomenon documented in ARPA FVG datasets dating back to the 1990s, with records covering coastal sites (Trieste, Fossalon), mountain sites (Enemonzo, Zoncolan) and lowland sites (Gradisca, Capriva, Cervignano, Palazzolo, Talmassons, Udine, Fagagna, San Vito, Pordenone, Brugnera, Vivaro).

With the scientific support of statisticians Prof. Francesco Pauli and Dr Gioia Di Credico of DEAMS – University of Trieste, Exhibit Around APS turns scientific data into clear, accessible graphic visualisations, applying visual and artistic approaches designed to make complex phenomena understandable to a non-specialist audience. These include warming stripes produced with the open-source R code developed by Prof. Ed Hawkins of the University of Reading.

La Forma del Calore unfolds in several stages: data analysis, the production of visualisations, a participatory citizen science campaign, in which the community gathers weather readings first-hand, and an exhibition at Magazzino 26 during Trieste Photo Days 2026 (October). The exhibition brings science and art into dialogue through the photographs of Filippo Ferraro‘s HEATALY project, creating a multisensory experience for a broad and diverse audience.

The project’s main outputs are: a printed flipbook that turns fifty years of local climate data into warming stripes, offering a tactile, visual experience that speaks to younger audiences too; a dedicated bilingual section (Italian and Slovenian) on the association’s website; and a public outreach event as part of Trieste Photo Days 2026.

La Forma del Calore is a climate awareness project that turns statistics into a visible, shared story, bringing the communities of Friuli Venezia Giulia closer to the concrete reality of their own climate.

La Forma del Calore is part of a call for proposals created within the RE-ACTIVE project, co-funded by the European Union under the Interreg VI-A Italy–Slovenia Programme.