As part of ART CITY Bologna 2026 on the occasion of ARTE FIERA
OPEN PROJECT
presents
SHORT CIRCUIT NATURE
Installation by Giacomo Cossio
curated by Manuela Valentini
promoted by Open Project | Engram | Eido visual
From 05.02 to 08.02
Viewable 24/7, works installed outside the building
Open Project | Via Pompeo Scipione Dolfi 7 - 40122 Bologna
Giacomo Cossio’s project introduces a sudden visual shift into everyday urban life: two trees covered in vibrant colors transform familiar forms into highly hybrid and estranging presences. The contrast between the living matter of the trees and the artificial surface of paint generates an immediate sense of disorientation—a true perceptual short circuit that interrupts the automatism of the gaze. Their placement in front of the Open Project façade amplifies this friction. Set against the façade of the Bolognese architecture studio, they function as a device for redefining space. The architecture is not contradicted, but re-tuned.
The intervention produces a different rhythm: a signal of disturbance that restores a symbolic status to natural elements. The trees thus become focal points capable of altering the perception of the place and reactivating a critical relationship with what, in the city, is taken for granted. The intervention invites viewers to consider nature as a fragile, negotiated presence that, through color, asserts a renewed visual force.
MONDOBRUTO
Works by Alessio Fava
curated by Martina Magrini
promoted by Open Project | Engram | Eido visual
From 05.02 to 08.02
thursday and friday h 13.00 - 16.00
saturday h 12.00 - 22.00
Open Project | Via Pompeo Scipione Dolfi 7 - 40122 Bologna
Mondobruto is a project by Alessio Fava that investigates the relationship between Brutalist architecture and nature through concrete works that can exist as autonomous sculptures. The project reflects on the life cycle of architecture and on the regenerative force of nature. Each work is an evolving organism, a place where construction and transformation meet.
The structures, designed using digital modeling software and handmade through artisanal molds, are inspired by Brutalist architecture and develop along two directions: terrariums in which mosses and plants grow in balance with concrete, and independent volumes conceived to be colonized over time or to exist as autonomous sculptures.
In the Habitats, vegetation gradually reclaims the structure within controlled environments. In the Modules and autonomous works, concrete becomes a potential ground: nature can seep into surfaces and fissures, or remain a latent possibility. In both cases, concrete changes under the action of time and humidity.
LA SOGLIA
Project by MeGa
curated by Lucrezia Ercoli
promoted by Open Project
From 05.02 to 08.02
thursday and friday h 13.00 - 16.00
saturday h 12.00 - 22.00
Open Project | Via Pompeo Scipione Dolfi 7 - 40122 Bologna
MeGa, an acronym for Meta and Gallery, is the name of the artistic collective of Popsophia and its virtual gallery: a cyberspace architecture accessible via VR headsets, where the relationship between art, thought, and technology is explored. It is a collaboration among philosophers, digital artists, and software developers that has given rise to an immersive exhibition space redefining the boundaries of aesthetic experience.
The visitor is immersed in a visual and sonic environment: rather than observing from a distance, they plunge into an experiential journey that engages all the senses. MeGa’s new exhibition is The Threshold. “In modern life we have become very poor in experiences of the threshold,” wrote Walter Benjamin.
The gallery’s seven rooms host seven digital works that invite visitors to experience thresholds—symbolic and initiatory spaces that call for metamorphosis. From the primordial boundary explored in the work Amniotic Sphere to the passage of death in Propylaea, inspired by Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Tomb, the seven stations function as liminal rites marking human existence.
MeGa’s exhibition is itself a threshold-space, compelling us to think in new ways.