Filo-diffusione

2 Exhibitions about Thread

13.11.2025 - 28.03.2026

The project draws inspiration from the women-centred exhibitions organised by Mirella Bentivoglio in the 1980s on the theme of the thread (filo), updating and expanding that research for the present day.

The exhibition features works by well-established artists, many of whom took part in Bentivoglio’s shows more than forty years ago, alongside younger artists who have embraced and reinterpreted those same concerns, developing them in step with the passage of time and the evolution of creative tools. Beginning with a retrospective survey of the works, conceived as a necessary condition for a free and open interpretation, the project unfolds in two distinct exhibitions.

 

The first, Filo-diffusione_Ə (November 13, 2025 – January 31, 2026), brings together works in which the use of thread is tied to an inner search, an exploration of the archetypal dimension linked to the mater element. Across the works on display, one perceives a profound need to explore the inner universe in an effort to define an autonomous and solid identity, one that does not reject the traits historically associated with dependence, but on the contrary, through a shift in perspective, exalts and transforms them into sources of strength.

In the second exhibition, Filo-diffusione_& (February 5 – March 28, 2026), this transformation is complete. Here, the artists move freely and confidently within the realm of logos, using thread as a means to tell stories, denounce injustices and abuses, “draw the world,” and protect and preserve the realm of memory.

The division between the two exhibitions is therefore not chronological, but interpretive, based on the dialogue between the works. This distinction is echoed in the choice of symbols, the “reversed e” (Ə) and the ampersand (&), which embody inclusion and conjunction, two guiding principles of the gallery. Fittingly, Gramma Epsilon means “the letter e” in Greek.

For the occasion, Maria Jole Serreli will create a site-specific installation paying tribute to the neighbourhood and to the building that houses the gallery—originally dedicated to the textile trade, and, more broadly, to women and thread as foundational elements of Greek culture.