MICHELA DE MATTEI | NATÁLIA TREJBALOVÁREAD: MORE ABOUT ATLANTIS AND CONNECT THE DOTS

Curated by Ilaria Gianni and Paola Clerico

Read More About Atlantis and Connect the Dots originates from a conversation. A sentence emerging from a work by Michela de Mattei, later chosen by Natália Trejbalová, finally becomes the title of an exhibition conceived as a space of proximity, relation, and reciprocal crossing. Conceived by IUNO and the Case Chiuse by Paola Clerico, the exhibition unfolds as a dialogue between two artistic practices and, before that, as a human ecosystem: a constellation of affinities, listening, and shared imaginaries.

In a time dominated by vertical narratives and singular perspectives, the exhibition explores the possibility of constructing lateral, partial, and porous connections. Rather than developing as a linear dialogue, Read More About Atlantis and Connect the Dots activates a field of interferences in which matter, fiction, memory, and speculation continuously contaminate one another, generating unstable environments and possible worlds.

The research of de Mattei and Trejbalová investigates the relationship between the natural world, technology, and imagination through speculative narratives, hallucinatory images, artificial ecosystems, and unstable forms of perception. The title of the exhibition suggests a double movement: on the one hand, “Read More About Atlantis” evokes the proliferation of stories and hypotheses surrounding a lost civilization that continues to resurface as a contemporary myth; on the other, “Connect the Dots” introduces the idea of a fragmented and associative form of knowledge, constructed through intuitions, partial connections, and unstable trajectories.

The exhibition unfolds between the spaces of IUNO and Cinema Azzurro Scipioni, where the two central films of the project, Never Ground (2025) by Natália Trejbalová and The World Part I: MIRAGE (2019) by Michela de Mattei, will be presented, extending the exhibition toward a cinematic and immersive dimension. Within the rooms of IUNO, sculptural works, videos, and drawings directly connected to the two films will be exhibited, revealing materials, imaginaries, and research trajectories that traverse their processes of construction. The exhibition environment thus takes shape as a space of continuous translations between surface and depth, organism and machine, reality and simulation.
The exhibition environment itself becomes an integral part of the project: Trejbalová intervenes directly within the spaces of IUNO by applying an orange film to the windows, transforming natural light into a diffuse perceptual filter. The interior consequently acquires a suspended, almost cinematic quality, altering the perception of the works and transforming the environment into a temporarily other landscape.

Atlantis, therefore, no longer appears as a lost place to be rediscovered, but rather as a perceptual condition that continues to resurface beneath the surface of contemporary images: an incomplete archive of possible connections, a submerged mirage inviting the viewer to move through fragments, drifts, and unstable constellations.

Download the critical text here IT – ENG

May 16 – June 24

Opening hours: Monday and Wednesday, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
or by appointment, by sending an email to info@iunoiuno.it

Foto: Roberto Apa