PAESI MIEI – Stories and gestures of Una Boccata d’Arte | Fondazione Elpis in collaboration with Toast Project

Fondazione Elpis, in collaboration with Toast Project, presents the group exhibition Paesi miei. Stories and gestures from Una Boccata d’Arte.

The exhibition recounts the experience of Una Boccata d’Arte, a widespread contemporary art project that since 2020 has invited twenty artists each year to work in twenty Italian villages—one for each region. The exhibition unfolds through a selection of works created during the sixth edition, which concluded last September.

Paesi miei brings, for the first time outside the Fondazione Elpis headquarters in the heart of Milan, the remarkable heritage gathered over these six editions. In keeping with the spirit of Una Boccata d’Arte, it comes to life through a network of collaborations with other contemporary art–oriented organizations, within a new relational landscape. This marks the first step in a broader initiative aimed at expanding the decentralized, site-specific narrative of Una Boccata d’Arte into new urban and cultural contexts.

The exhibition project relocates to the recently renovated spaces of Building B12 the artworks originally conceived for squares, streets, and distinctive architectures scattered throughout the Italian landscape. Featured artists from the sixth edition include Giuseppe Abate, Roberto Casti, Adele Dipasquale, Gabriele Ermini, Bibi Manavi, Qeu Meparishvili, and Aiko Shimotsuma. Complementing this selection is an archival installation by Atelier Tatanka, mapping the six-year history of the project.

In its transition to an urban and exhibition context, Paesi miei explores how these works—born from close engagement with local communities and shaped by periods of artistic residency—retain a relational memory. The voices of collective work, the scent of the landscape, and the pulse of everyday life persist within materials, stories, and gestures. Once placed in the exhibition space, these experiences preserve traces of their origins while projecting them toward a future horizon: that of a country understood as a network of economies, gestures, and emotions.

Throughout its duration, Paesi miei will be enlivened by two forms of activation. The first is the public program Storie di Una Boccata d’Arte, involving artists and curators. Every Wednesday, the program hosts encounters that share experiences and memories with specific communities such as students, emerging cultural professionals, and local residents. On Thursday, 4th December, the event Voices – A Più Voci, curated by Threes—longtime collaborator of Fondazione Elpis on sound-based projects within Una Boccata d’Arte—will feature live performances by Sara Persico and the duo Babau.

In addition, a daily schedule of audiovisual materials—artist films, videos, and documentaries from various editions—will be screened, restoring the temporal and narrative dimension intrinsic to Una Boccata d’Arte.