about.

From 13 May to 31 July 2025, the garden of Rome’s Ospitale Santa Francesca Romana will provide the setting for Bruna Esposito’s Altri Venti – Scirocco, a project conceived by the artist in 2020 and now produced by Studio Stefania Miscetti in 2025.

The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Ospitale Santa Francesca Romana.

Scirocco is the second of four pieces in a series of works entitled Altri Venti (“Other Winds”), which focuses on southern winds, and which Bruna Esposito began to develop and create in 2020. After Ostro (now housed in the permanent collection of the Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art in Prato), it is the turn of the scirocco, the hot wind that blows from the southeast, to flow through Trastevere.

Set at the foot of a bay tree, in a corner of the hospital’s garden, the work is composed of a gazebo made with natural materials such as bamboo, rope, earth and seeds. The welcoming environment is characterised by its air flow, which is generated by a solar-powered fan and a large naval propeller, a recurring element in the artist’s practice.

The project is the result of various fields of knowledge – art, architecture and technology – coming together. It reflects one of the artist’s recurring and increasingly central preoccupations, namely: that only by reducing the separation between people and the tools that might contribute to improving their daily lives can we create the imaginative conditions for environmental change. A change that would limit our excessive use of consumer goods like air conditioning units.

Bruna Esposito invites us to be more conscious in our use of sustainable energy resources, by way of simple solutions that we can all access. The work is configured as a device that is designed to reactivate space, transforming it into an environment rich in reflective and relational possibilities. In an age where meeting and coming together has acquired a renewed importance in our lives, Scirocco offers a space in which to wait and rest that also provides the opportunity for connection. It is at once a political and a poetic gesture: an exhortation to reflect on the impact of our actions and embrace the need for alternatives, and a rediscovery of the power of simplicity; an homage to the plain, straightforward solutions of the past.

A number of talks on subjects relating to sustainability and the environment will be organised alongside the exhibition.

Another exhibition of the artist’s work is currently on show at Rome’s Museo delle Civiltà until 31 August 2025, based on the findings of her Research Fellowship at the same museum. Entitled giganti miniature – ipotesi circa il museo e note sul carnevale, the exhibition is curated by Matteo Lucchetti and Andrea Viliani.

artist.

BRUNA ESPOSITO was born in Rome in 1960, where she lives and works. After a diploma at the IV Liceo Artistico in Rome, where he studied with Carmengloria Morales, she attended the Faculty of Architecture at Rome’s La Sapienza University. From 1980 to 1986 she lived in New York, where she was exposed to the language of contemporary dance. In 1987 she moved to West Berlin where, drawing on her university studies, she focused on the design of two environmentally sustainable public toilets. The project provided an early indication of the environmental awareness that would come to characterise her later output, in addition to the anthropological origins of much of her practice and her interest in ephemeral and marginal forms of knowledge and expression.

Her work has been presented at numerous international biennials, including: the Rome Quadrenniale (1996, 2008, 2021); Documenta X, Kassel (1997); the Venice Biennale (1999, 2005); Sonsbeek9, Arnhem, the Netherlands (2001); Istanbul Biennial (2003); Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2004); New Orleans Biennial, USA (2008); International Biennial of Cuenca, Ecuador (2016); and the Havana Biennial, Cuba (2019).

Awards and recognition for her work include: the 9th Edition of the Italian Council Prize, MIC, Rome (2021); the 62nd Edition of the Tremoli Prize at MACTE, in 2021; a shortlisting for the Italian Chamber of Deputies Award in honour of the 150th Anniversary of the Unification of Italy at Palazzo Montecitorio, Rome (2011); the Premio Nazionale per la Giovane Arte Italiana (Young Italian Art Prize), MAXXI, Rome, and Castel Sant’Elmo, Naples, in 2001; the P.S.1 Italian Studio Program award, New York (1999), and the Golden Lion at the 1999 Venice Biennale for the collective piece dAPPERTutto at the Italian Pavilion.

She currently teaches Sculptural Technique at the Rome Academy of Fine Arts, having taught at fine arts academies in L’Aquila, Frosinone and Brera. She has also taught at Temple and Cabot University and was a guest professor at the Rome branch of the Rhode Island School of Design.

For a more complete artist profile, see the artist page.

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