ICI Berlin
June 19 – July 21, 2025
Italian Cultural Institute
The first venue of the exhibition project Identity Beyond Borders, curated by Benedetta Carpi De Resmini and promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, was held at the Italian Cultural Institute in Berlin from June 19 to July 21, 2025.
The choice of Berlin as the exhibition's venue is not accidental: the German capital was selected by the curator for its crucial role in European history and culture. Symbol of the profound transformations that have swept across the continent over the past forty years, Berlin represents an emblematic location for the project to reflect on how art can offer a critical and informed perspective on the changes that occurred after the fall of the Wall and the subsequent social transformations.
Site-specific
Some artists have created site-specific works for the Berlin exhibition, such as Elena Bellantoni, Martina della Valle, and Tomaso Binga. Elena Bellantoni, due to her connection with the city (Berlin), where she lived for a long time and where she began her research on the body and language, was asked to create a visual poetry piece based on her important video The Fox and The Wolf: Struggle for Power (2014), filmed in the spaces of the Farnesina. This resulted in Il Manifesto della Volpe, where language becomes the body and the body becomes a possible space for resolving conflict.
Martina della Valle, a long-time resident of Berlin, will complete the works from the Farnesina Collection with other pieces related to the major project Under the Sun of Onomichi, particularly the installation of origami BLU Under the Sun of Onomichi (2009), composed of large origami pieces made using the cyanotype technique and mounted on metal, occupying the exhibition space with an imposing presence that contrasts with the lightness typically associated with origami. This installation reflects on the fragility of our ecosystem, endangered by human-made damage, such as the atomic bomb, and serves as a meditation on transformation, memory, and the possibility of rebirth.
Additionally, a different visual poem by Tomaso Binga will be selected for each venue, adapted to the specific space. For the Berlin exhibition, the poetic work ‘Natura Morta’ (1978) has been chosen, referencing “Munich’’, where the geographical element becomes a historical and political symbol of division. The barrier becomes a natural boundary, but this "nature" has now been contaminated, and its final outcome is "death." In this work, language, body, and politics merge to denounce structures of power.
ELENA BELLANTONI
Il Manifesto della Volpe
Manifesto della Volpe reaffirms the artist's focus on language as a critical tool, using wordplay to challenge and redefine power structures. In a show that investigates the conflict between humanity, nature, and culture, the artist transforms the scene of conflict into a global metaphor for contemporary relationships.
MARTINA DELLA VALLE
BLU (Under the sun of Onomichi), 2009
Twelve large origami papers (2009), created using the cyanotype technique and mounted on metal, occupy the exhibition space with an imposing presence that contrasts with the typical lightness of origami. Arranged on the floor, they recall the gesture of the origami master, captured in the act of throwing them. Here, origami becomes a metaphor for the life cycle: a perpetual alternation between dissolution and rebirth.
TOMASO BINGA
Natura Morta, 1978
With the visual poem Natura Morta the artist explores the semantic shift inherent in the phrase natura morta: literally “dead nature” in Italian and traditionally understood as “still life”, reinterpreting it as “nature dead from fear” (natura morta di paura). This linguistic play initiates a chain of associations that exposes and deconstructs the languages of power.