Terrestre

A space suspended between the natural and the unnatural.

Terrestre is an exhibition that explores the human condition and its relationship with the world, through the eyes of five very different artists. The installation itself takes the form of a human terrarium: an artificial ecosystem which, fiction though it is, symbolically recreates the complexity of our existence. Visitors are invited to confront the many facets of being «terrestrial», understood not only as an inhabitant of the planet but as a subject immersed in social, cultural and existential dynamics.

In a world shaped by globalisation and technology, the search for the essence of being terrestrial becomes urgent. As Heidegger suggests, the human being is not simply placed on the Earth but is a being-there: an existence that continually defines itself in dialogue with its context. This tension runs through the works on show, which turn the space into a visual laboratory of identities, conflicts and desires.

The works of Lorena Florio address the fragility and layering of the self, exposing the mechanisms of power and control that act on the body and on identity: the individual is constantly shaped by external forces, yet always capable of resistance and redefinition.

With Chris Rocchegiani painting becomes metamorphic, exploring the fluidity of identity as a process of continual becoming: a human being able to reinvent itself and pass through different forms while remaining in motion.

The work of Romeo Roxman Gatt tears open the tensions between body, consumption and sexuality. His works expose the conflicts of modernity and show how identities form on unstable ground made of desire, market and technology, in dialogue with Zygmunt Bauman's «liquid society», where nothing stays fixed and boundaries dissolve.

Elena Cilli turns our attention to the bond with nature, inviting us to recover an ethics of affection and respect for the ecosystem: a return to essential roots, a breath and a bearing in a frantic, disoriented age.

Finally, Alice Pilusi leads into an uncanny imaginary, where childhood is at once innocent and unsettling. Her works evoke the Freudian Unheimlich, the thin line between the familiar and the strange that brings the psyche's dark zones to light.

Together, these works build an environment in which the human being appears as a fragile, changeable creature, suspended between roots and transformations, between the natural and the artificial. Terrestre thus becomes an invitation to reflect on what it means to inhabit this planet: not merely to survive on it, but to take responsibility for living in it, transforming it and caring for it.

Curation of the exhibition and its visual identity, from the poster to the communication materials. Text by Gioia Di Girolamo.