Lucy Orta. Community Threads

According to the artist, Community Threads begins with a primary and universal gesture: the act of gathering. The reference is ancient: the Ohel (Hebrew for "tent") is the archetype of a sacred and protective space where the human and the sacred meet—the tent of the Madonna del Parto or the mantle of the Madonna della Misericordia by Piero della Francesca—but it is also a place of assembly, storytelling and transmission. A fragile and fluid architecture suspended between journey and temporary dwelling, offering the necessary shelter during every transition.

To give form to such a powerful archetype, Lucy Orta has created an equally powerful installation, the result of an extensive and meticulous work. The artist embroidered the portrait of each of the thirty-three people she encountered onto thirty-three cloth panels that come together to form five tent-like sculptures, creating a kind of encampment that gathers the individual profiles of communal life. The linen and hemp fabrics, made from old hand-woven sheets, evoke the material and moral memory of the territory and the bond between body, community, and environment. Among the suspended threads of each embroidered portrait emerge pearls, small golden tongues, silent guardians of the spoken word.

Ninety-nine small, hand-modelled terracotta artefacts hang from the cloths, evoking the plants, animals, and minerals that the inhabitants of the valley associate with their land. They suggest the fragile yet living architecture of a community that continues to endure. "These amulet-like forms act as weights," Lucy Orta explains. "They anchor the textiles to the ground, like the whorls of ancient looms creating lines of tension that vibrate in resonance with the oral testimonies embedded in the embroidery."

The installation becomes a place of gathering, shelter, and dialogue, where the uniqueness of each individual is woven into a collective cloth. Here, personal memories are transformed into shared consciousness, and every voice can resonate within the wider chorus of the community, inviting an experience of presence, listening, and active participation.

"With this installation, Lucy Orta does not merely represent a community: she calls it into being," explains Simonetta Carbonaro. A community-building process will accompany the exhibition throughout its duration. Additional residents of the valley will be invited to actively engage in a shared journey that begins with a reflection on what it means to belong to a place, a community, and a shared history—understood not as a fixed condition, but as an ongoing act of construction and reconstruction. The process will then explore the imagination of those "possible utopias" which are the driving force that continues to weave the threads of our communities as they strive toward the construction of desirable futures.

From this perspective, Community Threads also questions the roles of the artist, the audience and the institution: Who has the right to speak? Who decides what is visible and what has an impact on reality? Which bodies and which stories are legitimized as artistic—and therefore political—discourse? Here, answers are not provided but generated through the invitation to be together: to meet, think, speak and not lose the thread of this fabric, through which Lucy Orta invites us to weave new community ties and new folds of desirable futures.

Lucy Orta is one of the most internationally recognized artists for her ability to merge visual art with social commitment. With the studio, founded with Jorge Orta in 1991, Lucy addresses issues such as migration, environmental protection, human rights and community-building. Her works have been exhibited at institutions including the Barbican Gallery in London, the Biennale in Venice, MAXXI in Rome, and Pirelli Hangar Bicocca in Milan. Orta’s practice is also distinguished by sustained engagement with participatory art, involving local communities through workshops, performances and collective installations.

CasermArcheologica is an urban regeneration project that has redeveloped and repurposed the former Carabinieri barracks of Sansepolcro, located within Palazzo Muglioni, a historic building in the town centre. The CasermArcheologica Association has reopened two floors of the palace—abandoned and unused since the 1990s—now accessible as a cultural production centre open daily. Dedicated to contemporary arts, education and research, it provides a working space for professionals from Italy and abroad.

Simonetta Carbonaro is an expert in consumer culture. Her research focuses on the ethos of contemporary societies and the transformation of human needs and socio-cultural dynamics. She has taught at Domus Academy in Milan and has been a Visiting Professor at the London College of Fashion. In 1997, together with Christian Votava, she co-founded the consultancy REALISE in Germany, where she leads projects in sustainable innovation management and communication for major international brands.