The exhibition project adopts the geographical concept of map, a graphic representation commonly used to delineate a defined context and offer an objective depiction, and trasforms it into a tool for understanding complex realities that go beyond a neutral observation. The artists turn this element into a personal narrative device that questions whether what happens outside is actually a reflection of inner actions and processes. The view of the landscape, the connection with space and the influence it has on psychological and emotional dynamics, themes that have always characterised the gallery’s conceptual research, take shape in a variety of media and interpretations throughout the two open floors of the gallery. 

 

The large floor installation Dima per evaporazione (2025) by Giacomo Segantin welcomes visitors. Paper shapes on a 1:1 scale reconstruct the limestone stains of the monumental disused fountains observed by the artist in the Bicocca district of Milan, visible above thanks to satellite mapping. They represent a trace, a sort of contemporary archaeology that invites reflection on the specific identity that characterises an urban neighbourhood. On the wall behind, Elena Mazzi’s Polar Silk Road map series (2025) recounts the geopolitical transformations of the Arctic, exploring the relationship between climate change and landscape transformation and how we look and relate to it. In a combination of printed paper and pictorial intervention, Oliviero Fiorenzi develops a personal hydrographic map that intertwines natural and emotional geography. The artist reconstructs a poetic cartography, where the water cycle – rain, rivers, sea, evaporation,

clouds – is reflected in an inner cycle, made up of emotions that flow and shape the body. The video room hosts Gabriella Hirst’s video Force Majeure (2016), which depicts the artist attempting to paint a seascape in adverse weather conditions. The work questions the buffer zone needed between an event and its representation, as well as the arrogance of the Romantic painting tradition that seeks to capture vast phenomena within a small rectangular frame.

In an intimate and delicate narrative, Marzena Nowak’s drawings give shape to the ephemeral and volatile matter of memory, through lines that blur the boundary between dream and reality. The artist seeks to map her memories, engaging in a poetic and perceptive transformation in which past experiences are combined with projections and interpretations of the present, starting from fragmented impressions, details and gestures of everyday life.

​

Unframing Views transforms the exhibition space into an active container capable of evoking dialogue and imagination. By subverting a canonical point of view of measurement, the exhibition offers new ways of observing and interacting with the space around us and opens an exhibition programme aimed at emphasising Artopia’s connection with architecture and landscape.