EXPANDED GROUNDS

Large-scale artworks for a rest area

Ruben Montini

A moral duty

 

GALLERIA GABURRO

 
A Moral Duty (2021) is one of the most defining works in Ruben Montini’s (Oristano, 1986) body of work. Through the use of fabric—particularly Sardinian brocade—the artist constructs a message that challenges heteronormative stereotypes to give voice to the vulnerability and suffering of the LGBTQIA+ community. Coming out—the act by which an individual openly reveals their sexual orientation—is stripped of its intimate and biographical component and transformed into a necessarily political act: revealing oneself presupposes the ability of others to do the same, thereby breaking the vicious cycle of identity repression. Although initially confined to the domestic sphere, embroidery—which Montini inherits from history as a profoundly revolutionary and emancipatory act—emerges as a tool of queer resistance, denunciation, and assertion.

Andrea Cerruto

Le Bateleur

 

LO MAGNO ARTE CONTEMPORANEA

 

Le Bateleur emerged from a dialogue with the architectural and symbolic characteristics of the former Lancia Parking Lot. A large drape depicts the Magician from the Marseille Tarot, transforming a small card into a monumental presence.

The lightness of the fabric contrasts with the rigidity of the concrete, while the temporary nature of the work echoes the function of the parking lot as a place of rest and transit.

In Tarot tradition, the Magician is associated with ingenuity and the ability to transform what is at hand. Both a traveler and a creator, he embodies the potential for new experiences and possibilities. The Magician is depicted without his traditional tools, leaving room for creative expression. Next to the drape, a table echoes the one featured on the card and becomes the artist’s work surface, holding several notebooks that invite visitors to engage with the creative process.

The installation intertwines with the artist’s primary focus: research on the nomadic nature of bees, whose movement between territories fosters the emergence of new essences. The Magician’s wandering and the movement of the bees evoke a creativity in constant flux, capable of generating new relationships between the body, architecture, and imagination.

Federica Sutti

Yes Man Office 

 

ART4WOMEN 

 

Art4Women is a startup that connects contemporary art, businesses, and local communities. Through its RoadShow, it takes its community of artists on a tour of Italy in an electric van. On this leg of the tour, it arrives in Turin, where, at The Others Art Fair, it presents Yes Man Office by Federica Sutti: an interactive installation spanning two stations that reflects on consent as a form of labor.

In the first, THEFIRM OS—a dystopian operating system stuck in the late ’90s—the visitor sits down, accepts the contract, and becomes an employee: amid The Boss’s demands, The Supreme Boss’s expectations, and HR records, every gesture becomes part of the archive of consents. In the second, THEFIRM’s Mandatory Benefits Program, the strictly mandatory corporate benefits package takes the form of three 1980s-style arcade games: Company Gym, where consent is trained; Divination App, which keeps hope alive; and finally Consent Rehab, for those who still have the bad habit of saying no.

Aria Ixchel Zamora Morales

Non – Dualità

 

MAX-Y GALLERY

 

This site-specific installation stems from an ongoing exploration of two forces that guide and sustain us: the resilience of nature and the absolute power of love.

Through photography, photogravure, sound design, and live-recited poetry, images taken in São Tomé, Africa, are transformed into tactile prints on various media and brought together within a spatial composition. A translucent fabric extends the images into the surrounding space, while sound and poetry create an immersive environment.

A mirror places the viewer within the artwork, inviting us to reconsider the perceived separation between ourselves and the world around us. By exploring non-duality (literally, “not two”), the installation invites us to pause within a transitional space, where we can recognize human life and the natural world as part of the same living whole.

Cocis Ferrari

Tana libera tutti

 

BI-BOX ART SPACE

 

This project, conceived and designed for the spaces of the Lancia Parking, serves on the one hand to suggest a passage, encouraging a desire for openness and discovery, but on the other hand, it is a dead end—in effect, a deception.

The impossibility of crossing the space draws us into a new environment—one that feels exotic compared to its surroundings—placing us in a position to imagine an “elsewhere” without being able to go there. When I first conceived this work, I couldn’t help but notice the almost symmetrical and mirror-like proximity to the Merz Foundation—beyond the wall, on the other side of the street—and to reflect on the themes of crossing, nomadism, ownership, and boundaries, all central to my research: so the most natural thing was to make appear—almost like a mirage—a potential passage, a gateway.

An opportunity to discover, to explore, to put oneself out there, and at the same time to question the environment.

El Gato Chimney

Untitled

 

COLOMBO’S GALLERY

 

The work created by El Gato Chimney during the artist residency held between January and March 2026 at Casa degli Artisti in Milan stems from a desire to engage with his own imagination through experimentation with large-scale formats.

The project aligns fully with the theme of the “Expanded Grounds” open call, exploring the relationship between the artwork, space, and the surrounding environment. Through the creation of large-scale works on paper, El Gato Chimney broadens the scope of his artistic exploration, allowing gesture and instinct to express themselves with greater freedom and intensity. The works thus assert themselves in the space as disruptive elements, capable of interrupting the continuity of the environment and redefining its perception, introducing new possibilities for interpretation and meaning.