• The United Nations Sdg Action Campaign takes part in the 24th International Exhibition of Triennale Milano with a pavilion titled Parallel Realities, dedicated to inequalities.
• On display are digital works by Turkish artist Uğur Gallenkuş, which juxtapose images of privilege and oppression, touching on crucial themes related to global inequalities.
• Every year the Un Sdg Action Campaign recognises the initiatives and individuals around the world who have distinguished themselves through their work and activism: the changemakers of the future.

Powerful images of inequality at Triennale. There is a woman split in two — one half smiling, the other bruised. Children playing or going to school, sharing the same frame with other children caught in contexts of war or hunger. Even a line of people, likely migrants, laden with bundles, morphing into a glittering fashion show. These are the digital works of Turkish artist Uğur Gallenkuş, hosted inside the Parallel Realities pavilion at the 24th International Exhibition of Triennale Milano, titled Inequalities (open until 9 November). They were brought here by the United Nations Sdg Action Campaign, a special initiative of the UN Secretary-General, mandated to engage and catalyse positive change towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda.

Raising awareness about inequalities at Triennale

Parallel Realities aims to be more than an exhibition — it is a concrete call to action to counter the inequalities threatening the stability of societies. In the immersive and engaging pavilion, the collages of artist Uğur Gallenkuş juxtapose images of privilege and oppression, touching on crucial themes such as economic inequality, climate injustice, access to food and gender disparity. His works offer a raw vision of social fractures and issue an urgent appeal for systemic change, reminding us that inequality remains a global challenge rooted in deep historical and cultural structures.

"The theme of inequality cuts across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals," explains Marina Ponti, global director of the Un Sdg Action Campaign. "It is our duty to explain this reality, while at the same time sending a message of hope. Courage drives us to act and change things, while reality holds us back. We must believe that improvement is possible. That is why one of our cornerstones is always linking hope to action." To that end, the second part of the pavilion features the Hope in Action section, where visitors meet some changemakers — agents of change — and hear their stories through videos.

The changemakers making a difference

Every year, the United Nations Sdg Action Campaign launches a global open call to find and recognise these changemakers: people who fight every day for equality and justice and who, through their actions, have managed to transform their own local realities. This year the awards ceremony will take place in Rome on 29 October. "Changemakers represent the synthesis of the link between hope and action," comments Ponti. "In Rome we will bring all the finalists together for a training and networking workshop session, to acquire new skills useful to their cause. In the Parallel Realities pavilion, visitors can discover some of their stories: a much-needed injection of optimism for all visitors."

Among the changemakers from previous editions is an Italian, Martina Fuga of CoorDown, creator of the campaign Assume that I can against stereotypes related to people with Down syndrome. There is also Payzee Mahmod, of Kurdish origin, who rebelled against a child marriage, and whose activism helped bring about the passage of the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act in England and Wales, eliminating a legal exception that allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to marry with parental or family consent. Among the winners of past editions is also the grassroots campaign A White Dress Does Not Cover the Rape, which succeeded in getting Lebanon to abolish the so-called "marry-your-rapist" law, under which a rapist could avoid punishment by marrying his victim.

Inequalities: what to see at the 24th International Exhibition

The exhibition presents itself as a choral project that, through shows, special installations, international participations, performances and public events, addresses the great global challenges linked to inequalities spanning diverse areas of human experience — from economic and ethnic disparities to those tied to geographical origin and gender. Triennale Milano has involved leading figures from the international artistic and cultural scene. The result is a collective work bringing together 28 exhibition curators and special project curators, who have in turn engaged 341 authors from 73 countries.

The theme of inequalities is explored along two main axes: geopolitics and biopolitics. The ground floor of the Palazzo dell'Arte is dedicated to the geopolitical dimension, with a particular focus on the urban context and the transformation of the concepts of "wealth" and "poverty" within contemporary city life. The first floor, on the other hand, delves into inequalities from a biopolitical perspective, examining how they influence lifestyles, expectations and habits in today's societies. The body — understood as a space of social biodiversity — becomes the lens through which to analyse mobility, access and representation within social systems.