Cristina Lavosi – E non dono celeste

Mostra personale.

Comunicato stampa

Through film and audiovisual installation, Cristina Lavosi examines the role of institutions in constructing dominant narratives, legitimizing unequal power relations, and imposing norms of living. Her projects often emerge from workshops, field research, and shared creative processes in which authorship is distributed and knowledge is co-produced.

E non dono celeste, her first solo show in Italy, unfolds around two new participatory films conceived as stages within a broader artistic inquiry – two nodes in a constellation of practices exploring the punitive universe and contemporary visions of transformative justice.

In contrast to penal systems that often reproduce the very violence they claim to redress, transformative justice proposes a community-based framework for addressing conflict – one that seeks to confront the root causes of harm and foster collective responsibility, rejecting isolation and individual call-outs.

Continuously negotiating her position as artist, director, and facilitator, Lavosi gathers practices and reflections from groups experimenting with less hierarchical and more transparent relational forms, without concealing their limits and contradictions. The works retain an imaginative dimension intertwined with the concreteness of inner work and reciprocal listening.

Cinque lire di stelle emerges from the artist's collaboration with ULIT, a collective, of which Lavosi is a member, engaged in research and self-education on transformative justice and conflict facilitation. The film work brings together documentation and filmic experimentation to convey the practices, questions, and attempts of a group reflecting on how to build responsible communities capable of resisting punitive culture.
The video makes visible a work that is often a quiet and daily one, built on practices of listening, mediation, and small gestures capable of redefining relationships. Emblematic is the tuning fork that runs through the work and the exhibition space as both symbolic and sonic device: an instrument for “bringing voices into tune,” but also a metaphor for the effort required to build trust and sustain spaces able to hold vulnerability, conflict, and error.

To create Cos’altro, cos’altro c’è nella città gioiosa?, Lavosi worked from the short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin with a group of adolescents and young adults from the MaTeMù popular school in Rome’s Esquilino district. The story – imagining a happy city founded on the suffering of a single segregated child – served as the starting point for a workshop developed with performer Sarah Silvagni and theatre educators Tamara Bartolini and Michele Baronio, structured around readings, collective discussion, theatrical practices, and writing. The process culminated in the production of a collective Super 8 short film, shot directly by the participants, who were involved in the film’s directing process.

The seating and modular elements of the exhibition were designed by Nicholas Sabena and Riccardo Cenedella to accommodate moments of activation throughout the show. During the exhibition period, we will host a reading group based on a selection of texts curated by ULIT, along with moments of collective reflection on the relationship between violence and security measures, in dialogue with activists and organisations active in the Turin area, in dialogue with activist groups based in Turin. The program will also include a facilitation workshop led by Giusi Palomba, a speculative fiction workshop conducted by Cristina Lavosi, and a theatre workshop developed in collaboration with Qu’ouïr, addressing themes of conflict and safety from feminist and queer perspectives. The exhibition seeks to serve as a catalyst for dialogue and learning, inviting individuals in different roles and positions to engage more deeply with the themes of transformative justice.

Program:

March 12, 2026
Open discussion on violence and security apparatuses in dialogue with activists and grassroots organisations in Turin.

March 25, 2026
Costellazioni imperfette
Reading group on texts selected by ULIT.

April 7, 2026
Sogno o strumento?
Workshop on critiques of transformative justice, facilitated by Giusi Palomba.

April 11-12, 2026
Cos’altro, cos’altro c’è nella città gioiosa?
Speculative fiction and zine-making workshop for a society beyond punishment, facilitated by Cristina Lavosi with Spazio Muffa.

April 22, 2026
Costellazioni imperfette
Reading group on texts selected by ULIT.

May 4, 2026
Corpi sulla soglia
Forum Theatre workshop on conflict, community, and safe(r) spaces from feminist and queer perspectives, in collaboration with Qu’ouïr.

May 13, 2026
Costellazioni imperfette
Reading group on texts selected by ULIT.

Works created in collaboration with:
ULIT—Un Limone In Tasca
MaTeMù, youth space of CIES Onlus, Rome, Tamara Bartolini, Michele Baronio and Sarah Silvagni
Kateryna Berezina, Valentina Bianchi, Marília Breite, Elke De Neve, Tine Deboelpaep, Diane Fleury, Jimena Garcia Vazquez

Exhibition design
Nicholas Sabena and Riccardo Cenedella

Special thanks to
Kokoschka Revival

With the support of the MiC and SIAE, within the framework of the “Per Chi Crea” program.

Co-financed by
Mondriaan Fund, Stroom Den Haag

Textile scenographies produced within the framework of Off the Grid (Cas-co, Leuven).