The body is a vessel — a biological structure that houses our thoughts, emotions, memories, and sense of self. Through our bodies we communicate with our outside world, creating personal and collective histories, embodying societal expectations and cultural narratives that merge our identities. Within the confines of our living space, we can create a secluded and intimate space for ourselves, where we reflect on our bodily experiences and use them as spaces of exploration.
The Body Within delves into this dynamic relationship, exploring the body as an evolving entity intertwined with its surroundings and an active site of transformation. The exhibition is the second part of the bigger project Salotto, that reimagines the home as a space of envelopment—a cocoon where identity takes shape step by step, merging the personal with the universal in a continuous state of becoming.
We invite you to experience the work of six artists, whose works engage with contemporary aesthetics and acknowledge the collaborative ingredient beyond the conventional exhibition context.
ELENA BI, PERFORMANCE, METAMORPHOSIS: LIFE CYCLE OF A WATER LILY Metamorphosis: Life Cycle of a Water Lily” is a meditative and evocative performance that explores the transformative journey of a water lily as a reflection of the human experience of change. Set in the serene environment of a dimly lit pond, the piece captures the natural cycles of growth, transformation, and renewal. Through rhythmic movements, flowing fabrics, and the interplay of water and sound, the performer embodies the stages of the lily’s life—from the quiet submersion of roots, to the vibrant and rewarding bloom, and finally, the gentle decay that returns it to the earth. The performance conveys that change is both painful and rewarding, patient yet spontaneous, requiring resilience and acceptance of its ongoing, cyclical nature. It is a poignant reminder that transformation, though challenging, is inherently beautiful.
DANIEL ANGELO NICOLA PANTALEO, PERFORMANCE DRESS, UNTITLED This project explores the themes of metamorphosis and transformation through fluidity, transparency, and layering. Inspired by natural forms and life cycles, the design evolves alongside the performance, embodying the phases of growth, bloom, and decay. The centerpiece is a delicate white dress crafted from silk organza and light jersey fabric, featuring a flowing silhouette and airy ruffles that allow for dynamic movement and reshaping. Layering enhances the interplay of light and water, emphasizing the fabric’s translucency and revealing overlapping textures. Embossed silk shorts add a playful yet structured contrast, drawing inspiration from historical underwear while transitioning into modern, organic shapes. This element evokes a softer intimacy and a fragile essence of the inner self, subtly revealed through the semi-transparency of the gown's fabrics. Drawing from the fluid draping styles of the end 19’ century and start of the 20’, the design integrates historical references with contemporary exploration. Lacing details and drawstrings allow the garment to adapt to the body throughout the performance, adding dimension and texture to the headpiece. These elements enhance the narrative of transformation, as the layers interact with water to create shifting transparencies. Together with the performer’s movements and the curated sounds, the design invites the viewer into the ephemeral beauty of metamorphosis, blending visual and auditory experiences into a harmonious, immersive journey.
MARTA ANT, VIDEO WORK, HAUT Haut - German term for skin - is a microcosm trapped in a box of dolls that cyclically and repeatedly turns on, like a clock cuckoo clock. A red box that dances in an endless cycle, in which the beginning is overlaps with the end and each gesture repeats endlessly, shaping a system in perpetual motion, where time is annulled and cyclicity becomes law. Haut opens a glimpse into an existential and multidimensional interpretation of reality, within the subtle dynamics of space and time. Marta Ant explores everyday life through five characters trapped in a systematic and repetitive cycle, whose presence is part of an illusory web that is revealed only through spatio-temporal simultaneities. This simultaneity evolves the interconnectedness between the characters, triggering a transformation that overturns the stability of the system itself. Inspired primarily by Tango, the video animation by Zbigniew Rybczyński (1981), the artist brings to life a “real” version of that animated world, confronting the space-time limitations and the chaos that ensues. Haut is a visual and sensory experience that pushes beyond the concept of skin as a physical and identity boundary. It invites us to explore a reality in which individual boundaries are dissolve, showing how each element is part of a larger and deeply connected. A perpetual flux that challenges the very idea of separation, weakening the boundaries between conscious and subconscious, individual body and collective body, mistakes and possibilities, boredom and attention, in a continuous interplay between the temporary and the eternal.
MANUEL CORNELIUS, SCULPTURES Working primarily in sculpture and installation, Cornelius explores how the ongoing development of digital production technologies affects our relationship with design, fashion, and art. He often combines the cold precision of technology with an organic material made from boiled algae extract. Fresh from the mould, this material is able to imitate the flawless surfaces of the product world. What initially appears to be synthetic plastic reveals its organic nature after a few days, when it begins to change its appearance. The moisture evaporates, the sculptures dry out and decompose. This process emphasises the precarious visual shelf-life in an age of digital acceleration and allows Cornelius to incorporate disgust and aversion as fruitful aesthetic categories.
ZU KALINOWSKA, HAIR WORKS Her work explores futuristic ideas of human intimacy beyond the corporeal. Zu toes the line between disgust and beauty, exploring societal generalisations of the dichotomy between Real and Fake. Her works examine the remnants and debris of humans and their pointless creations that can stem from the trauma of late-stage capitalism. She seeks to find ways to perpetuate intimacy, encourage disgust, and thereby attempts to counteract life in this era of time-space compression.