bruna esposito
giganti miniature
hypotheses about the museum and notes on the carnival
The exhibition revolves around 16 proposals and projects that artist Bruna Esposito conceived during her 2 years of research as a Research Fellow at the MUCIV-Museum of Civilizations. Approaching the daily work of preservation, analysis and storytelling of the museum institution, the artist shared her proposals as possible hypotheses about the museum and its historic collections, without developing them into actual works but rather allowing the museum and its audiences to further reflect upon them.
Esposito decided to present her articulated research during the period of the Carnival, understanding how this ancient festivity shares the same vision with which she hypothesized her projects. The latter are, in fact, the result of a subversion of the rules that traditionally organize the museum’s exhibitions paths and working methods, just as the Carnival invokes a suspension of conventional norms and social hierarchies and allows, for a limited period of the year, individuals and communities to adopt nonconformist and liberatory behaviors.
Already from the title of the exhibition, which highlights the paradoxical pair of giganti and miniature (which translates as giant and miniaturs), the artist invites us to reflect on the monumentality of the historic responsibility and the architectural buildings of the Museum of Civilizations – actual giants built for the never-inaugurated Universal Exhibition of Rome (EUR) in 1942 – that over time became custodians of objects, often infinitesimally small and at times even immaterial, almost as if they were miniatures of the historical and cultural values and relationships to which they are agents and witnesses. This paradox becomes the perspective with which to interpret the artist’s 16 proposals, that reflect on the potentialities and controversies of a contemporary ethnographic-anthropological museum, with a scale oscillating between the macroscopic and the microscopic, the visible and the invisible, the known and the unknown, the affirmed and the omitted.
The exhibition layout is also centered on a double geometric figure. The first is that of the square, which recalls the Italian expression “fare quadrato” (literally “making square”) that indicates the gesture of coming together to collectively protect someone or something. The exhibition is articulated in four historical museum showcases placed in the center, which display some of the collections’ smallest and most fragile artifacts, while on the sides of the room four groups of cases collect the ideas, thoughts, sketches and simulations that the artist has proposed during her research. The second figure is that of the circle, activated by the movement of a fan hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room, to which colored plastic strips are attached, lightly touching the museum showcases and highlighting their role as discriminating and controlling agents.
Each proposal provokes, indeed, a small reversal of perspective about the role of the museum in its functions of historicizing and narrating the objects it preserves. One of the themes analyzed by Esposito is that of uncertainty, symbolized by the tilde sign, which in mathematical language means ‘about’ − that is, an equivalence or approximation which often indicates an uncertain date or a broad period in the dating of objects. This uncertainty suggested to the artist the possibility of selecting with the curators of the Museum and juxtaposing, in the center of the room, objects from the collections − Prehistory and Folk Arts and Traditions − that generally do not interact with each other: keeping as criteria for selection and equalization their small size and the uncertainty of their exact dating, allowing possible alternative interpretations to emerge from these temporary juxtapositions. The moving blade fan, almost framed between the showcases, emphasizes the circularity of time of these new diachronic juxtapositions and recalls the ongoing tension between the parts of a discourse in the making, but it also evokes – and this is what inspired the artist – the need to drive the flies away from the fish in a food market.
Among the various hypotheses presented – all potentially feasible and consciously unrealized – one has already been adopted by the MUCIV-Museum of Civilizations: the proposed donation to the Collections of Folk Arts and Traditions of a float from the Viareggio Carnival – among the most famous intangible traditions and material manifestations of Italian folk art – documented in the exhibition by a video-label. Esposito proposed the acquisition of a papier-mâché figure about twelve meters tall, titled Pace Armata and made in 2023 by master Alessandro Avanzini on the occasion of the 150th edition of the historic Carnival. Musealizing this living tradition means, for the artist, contributing to a reversal of the usual relationship between high and popular culture, big and small dimensions, which embodies the very history of these collections. Morevoer, it also attributes further value to an only seemingly ephemeral artistic technique, perfected in 1925 with clay models, plaster casts, newspaper and with glue made of water and flour to create lightweight structures which allows giant models to be set in motion and interact, with irony and sagacity, on current events.
Similarly to the tradition of the Viareggio Carnival’s floats, the artist’s 16 proposals are a free and liberating traversal of the Museum, prefiguring potential scenarios through which the collections can continue to narrate multiples stories.
16 hypotheses about the museum and notes on the carnival
[1]
Museo delle civiltà (~)/Museo delle civiltà?, 2023
lettering on sign and/or museum signage with various materials
variable dimensions
[2]
Arcobaleno monumentale, 2023
curtains, backlighting with fabric, low power electrical system, led, iron, wood
1000 x 5000 cm
[3]
Omaggio al 150° del carnevale di Viareggio, 2023
proposed loan of part of winning floats:
1st category: Una storia fantastica by Iacopo Allegrucci
2nd category: Occhio e malocchio by Carlo and Lorenzo Lombardi
various materials, iron, papier-mâché, acrylics
various dimensions
proposed acquisition of part of the 1st category float: Pace Armata by Alessandro Avanzini
various materials, iron, papier-mâché, acrylics
height about 1200 cm
[4]
Faccetta nera, 2023
part of the float Scusate se ci divertiamo, balla che ti passa of the Viareggio Carnival 2004 by Gilbert Lebigre, Corinne Roger, Arnaldo Galli papier-mâché, acrylics, audio loop, amplifier, speaker
height 1300 cm
[5]
Le tre scimmie, 2023
papier-mâché, iron, acrylics, various materials
variable dimensions
[6]
Museo – poesia di Wislawa Szymborska, 2023
fans or posters of printed paper for free takeaway for the audience
21 x 29,7 cm
[7]
Pace Armata, 2023
proposed acquisition and installation of part of the float Pace armata by Alessandro Avanzini of the Viareggio Carnival 2023
[8]
Quale arcobaleno?, 2023
diptych composed of: marble and glass paste mosaic in rainbow colors;
part of the float Pace armata by Alessandro Avanzini from the Viareggio Carnival 2023
about 1000 cm
[9]
Gigante e miniature (2), 2023
installation with glass, sand, fans, audience
400 x 400 x 270 cm
[10]
(~), 2023
traces with sand
variable dimensions
[11]
(~), 2023
mosaic with mixed white marbles, film, projector
monumental dimensions (to be decided)
[12]
Ventagli, 2024
paper fans printed with drawings and verses for free take-away for the public
21 x 29,7 cm
[13]
Cranio di puzzola e dente di cane (~), 2023
installation with skull of a European polecat and dog’s tooth (Early Neolithic: ca. 5960-5250 BC), dedicated case
variable dimensions
[14]
circa, 2023
installation with glove box, latex, plexiglass
2 x 2 x 2,70 cm
[15]
Scacciamosche arcobaleno,2024-2025
laser printing, hand retouching with colored pastels
[16]
Fare quadrato, 2024/giganti miniature, 2025
showcases, specimens from the collections, sketches, notebook pages, videos, contracts, books, mosaic, sand, three-blade fan, plastic bags for dog droppings, electrical equipment, confetti
site-specific dimensions
Courtesy the artist and MUCIV-Museum of Civilizations
Tilde (hypotheses 1, 10, 11, 14)
Bruna Esposito’s first proposals involve examining what the museum institution affirms as “civilization” − both in general and specifically as expressed by the name Museum of Civilizations. The first hypothesis proposed was to add the tilde (~) next to the Museum’s name, Museo delle Civiltà (~) [Museum of Civilizations (~)], to express doubt and lessen its assertiveness. In mathematical language and dating, the tilde is often used to indicate when a number or date cannot be attributed with certainty.
(~) is also the title of other proposals that engage with the symbol. The first is a mosaic that reproduces the symbol in shades of white. On this surface, a film is projected, displaying a selection of objects from the collections in black and white, obscuring them with smoke. Here, the two techniques of mosaic art and cinema are brought into dialogue; while extremely distant from each other in the timeline of art history, they are quite close in that they both dematerialize images − into tiles and light, respectively. For the second proposal, the artist uses her fingers to imprint the tilde on piles of sand, imagining scattering them as small presences or material captions in some of the display cases of the Museum’s Prehistory section.
Esposito’s interest in uncertainty led her to engage with the prehistoric collections in which dating is often expressed with an approximate time span to convey the indeterminacy of attribution and temporal identification. Circa is the title of another proposal in which Esposito invites the public to use glove boxes (biological safety cabinets designed to handle materials in protected atmospheres). However, these containers do not contain any objects. To put one’s hands inside them is to handle the void, subverting the usual museum rule of not touching the objects. ML
Rainbow (hypotheses 2, 8, 15)
Some of Bruna Esposito’s first proposals focus on the rainbow as a universal contemporary emblem of social and cultural harmony. It became the flag of the peace movement in the 1960s and later the LGBTQIA+ rights movement. The proposal Arcobaleno monumentale [Monumental rainbow] was conceived to coincide with the restoration of Giulio Rosso’s historic stained-glass window in the Science Building of the Museum of Civilizations. It proposes creating a temporary photovoltaic window in the seven colors of the rainbow, which would supply renewable energy to the Museum. Since the window is located in one of the Museum’s central and most recognizable passages, it would also raise awareness about sustainable practices to fight the climate crisis. The rainbow reappeared during the artist’s research at the museum. For example, Quale arcobaleno? [Which rainbow?] proposes creating a mosaic in the form a rainbow, transposing the immateriality of the light spectrum into a monumentality typical of the buildings of the Museum of Civilizations, which preserve two 1940s mosaics − one by Fortunato Depero and the other by Enrico Prampolini − on their rear facade. The exhibition includes a small model that the artist made in collaboration with the mosaicist Maurizio D’Ugo. The rainbow also appears in colored pencils, charm bracelets, and, finally, on the blades of the fan at the center of the room, imagined in the hypothesis Scacciamosche arcobaleno [Rainbow fly-scatterer] as a tribute to the folk and popular knowledge of using this method to drive flies away from fish displayed in market stalls. ML
Carnival (hypotheses 3, 4, 5, 7)
In her research on Italian folk arts and traditions, Bruna Esposito focused on the Viareggio Carnival, attending its 150th edition in 2023. She was captivated by the event’s vibrant energy, particularly the craftsmanship of the artists who create the papier-mâché floats. Since these allegorical devices are not part of the Museum’s collection, the artist proposed Omaggio al 150° del Carnevale di Viareggio [Homage to the 150th of the Viareggio Carnival] − the temporary exhibition of parts of the winning floats in 2023 by Iacopo Allegrucci and Carlo and Lorenzo Lombardi (first and second category respectively); while, at the same time, activating the donation of the float Pace Armata by the master carrista Alessandro Avanzini. The donation to the Italian Folk Arts and Traditions Collection relates to the main character of the float, a twelve-meter-tall figure of a teenage girl dressed as a soldier with a gas mask, her cloak lined with rainbow colors, symbolizes the need for peace amid all ongoing wars.
Esposito’s provocative hypothesis Faccetta nera [Little black face] involves exhibiting a giant figure of a Black dancer from a 2004 float, now held at the Viareggio Carnival Museum. This figure will be accompanied with a ghostly recitation of the lyrics from the Fascist-era propaganda song of the same name. The artist juxtaposes the stereotyped Black body with the colonial song, indicating the persistence of coloniality in the contemporary imagination.
Finally, Le tre scimmie [The three monkeys] pays tribute to papier-mâché. Esposito proposes a giant sculpture of the three wise monkeys − “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” − crafted by Viareggio masters. The iconic figures, originally transmitted from Asian cultures to reach transcultural contemporary omnipresence (evident in their emoji form), would be exhibited in the Museum of Civilizations in Rome, a custodian of popular and world cultures. ML
Fans (hypotheses 6, 12)
In Muzeum (1962), the Polish poet Wisława Szymborska (Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996) reflects on how objects − such as plates, crowns, and fans − lose the life that once passed through them when removed from their contexts, deprived of their uses, and displayed in museum vitrines. Bruna Esposito designed handheld paper fans to carry the poem’s words, translated into as many languages as possible, throughout the halls of the Museum of Civilizations, distributing them to the visitors. The hypothesis Museo – poesia di Wislawa Szymborska [The Museum – poem of Wisława Szymborska], initially conceived for posters, addresses the complex debate surrounding the contemporary museum – whether it serves only as a repository of ancient objects that fail to speak to the present or if they are active interpreters of contemporary life. In this context, the gesture of fanning oneself with Szymborska’s precious words offers symbolic relief, both in the form of air and the movement of thought.
The other hypothesis, Ventagli [Fans], introduces paper fans printed with five drawings with accompanying poems by Esposito, each dedicated to an object she encountered in the prehistoric collections. These include a bronze female statuette from Sardinia dating to the Early Iron Age (11th-10th century BC), whose pose resembles that of Pace Armata and can be seen in one of the central display cases in the room. ML
Giant Miniatures (hypotheses 9, 13, 16)
At the beginning of her research fellowship, Bruna Esposito observed the dichotomy between giants and miniatures as a consistent logic of the Museum and its collections. Within monumental structures designed to evoke magniloquent power, ever so small objects are preserved and studied – such as the eighteenth-century mouth harp, part of the artist’s first intervention at the entrance of the Building of Folk Arts and Traditions and now displayed in the installation’s central vitrine. Similar, in Cranio di puzzola e dente di cane (~) [Skull of a European polecat and dog tooth (~)], Esposito proposes displaying fragments of ancient Neolithic animal bones in a case alongside a tilde stamped in sand, an homage to the care and scientific dedication of the Museum’s curators studying such small objects with uncertain dating, which are essential for understanding the relationship between humans and other species in those remote times.
In Gigante e miniature (2) [Giant and miniatures (2)], Esposito imagines a room-case where she installs other additional display cases containing tiny tildes imprinted in sand, to be observed with a magnifying glass, above which fans slowly turn. Here, the artist aims to show the matryoshka effect that every museum embodies: a container of other containers, itself housed within the city, where cultures are mobile, not fixed as they appear in museum vitrines. The artificially produced wind of the fans reminds us of the movement that cannot be contained, a concept further explored in Fare quadrato, the initial title of the hypothesis later renamed giganti miniature [giant miniatures], for a concluding installation that consolidates all of Esposito’s reflections in a single installation, namely the one on display. ML
Diary and Notebook
During her two years of research, Bruna Esposito corresponded with the director Andrea Viliani, the curator Matteo Lucchetti, and other Museum curators, sending twenty letters in the form of diary pages documenting her Research Fellowship. Occasionally, the artist summarized her hypotheses for the Museum of Civilizations, accompanying them with reflections, questions, doubts, scattered notes, passages from the books she was reading (displayed here in a dedicated vitrine), and, above all, discussing their feasibility or the difficulty in realizing them. “Making and unmaking the artwork” is a recurring methodology in Esposito’s artistic research. Here, she used the process of conceiving and forming a artwork as terrain for testing the museum and its potential through gently and continuously reconfiguring its certainties. In the final page of her diary, written on December 11, 2024, the artist proposes the installation’s closing gesture: dedicating two display cases to confetti, made available to the public as “invigorating disobediences to the norm,” in true Carnival spirit. These scraps of paper reflect the interplay of “giants” and “miniatures” within the artist’s research. She writes that confetti are simultaneously “miniature witnesses of moments and vertigo of joy” and a “trace of melancholy for something lost”.
What is preciously displayed in the exhibition, instead, are all the pages of a notebook in which the artists drew sketches of the proposals, demonstrating how each has been scrutinized and verified for possible execution. These pages leave the museum with multiple possibilities for thinking and creating differently, overturning its certainties to accommodate new, still uncertain, but possible formations. ML