For the 7th edition of Borgo Universo (July 2023) — a festival, founded in 2017 and linked to Aielli's Tower of the Stars, a 14th-century building converted into an astronomical observatory and library, where astronomy and contemporary art meet in the medieval village of Aielli — Vhils carved a portrait into a small architectural niche. The scale and placement of the work contrast with the monumentality of many of his public interventions, asking the viewer to discover it through the village, not to encounter it from a distance. Within a project shaped by the relationship between the human and the cosmic — now counting more than 40 permanent murals, sculptures and installations across the village — the portrait introduces an intimate presence into a wider reflection on place and perspective.