EXIT

The Plural I
Palazzo Pepoli – Museum of the History of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
ArteFiera 2026
Organised by Do ut Do

EXIT explores identity as a layered and evolving condition, shaped by memory, experience, inherited structures and the possibility of transformation.

The installation is centred around a dress hand-built directly on a mannequin using anodised aluminium wire, alongside a metal basin and a mirrored platform. The dress becomes a visual representation of the many identities that form us. It begins from the tail with darker tones of blue and black, carrying a sense of weight: what we inherit, what we carry, and the forms of self we may have outgrown. As the dress rises, the colours become lighter, while still holding traces of darkness. What marks us does not disappear completely; it remains like a scar, but it can also strengthen and reshape us.

The upper part of the dress opens into a wing-like form, suggesting transformation, freedom and the possibility of becoming. The body is present but anonymous, allowing the work to speak not of one fixed identity, but of the many versions of the self we carry and sustain.

The basin and the dress never physically touch, but they exist in relation to one another. The basin becomes a vessel and a possible doorway: a place from which new choices, new forms and new possibilities can emerge. The word EXIT does not represent an ending, but the possibility of leaving behind what no longer belongs to us and reconstructing the self differently.

The mirrored platform amplifies and doubles the installation, inviting the viewer to move around it and encounter their own reflection within the work. Installed beneath a source of natural light, the work changed throughout the day, shifting between daylight and evening atmosphere and allowing reflection, shadow and colour to transform with the space.

Through material, colour, reflection and space, EXIT considers identity as something continuously built, carried, released and transformed.

Materials
Hand-shaped anodised aluminium wire, female mannequin, metal basin, mirrored methacrylate platform on shaped MDF structure.

Dimensions
Female mannequin: 193 cm high
Metal basin: 80 × 58 × 34 cm
Mirrored methacrylate platform on shaped MDF structure: 200 × 300 cm