We Don’t Find The Pieces They Find Themselves, curated by Irene Biolchini, is a project that focuses on the processes of creation, restoration, and conservation by reflecting on the history of ceramics, its durability, and the dignity of the silent work that takes place in the lesser-known places of an institution.

With this project, Salvatore Arancio continues his fascination with the medium of ceramics. In collaboration with the MIC in Faenza, the artist proposes a dialogue with areas hidden from the public in the museum. The exhibition consists of several elements created using the language of video and sculpture, developed during different stages of research and production.

Initially, the artist worked on a video, proposing a poetic reinterpretation of the storage department and restoration workshop, where for years, tecnicians have been working to reconstruct ceramics from the museum’s collection damaged during the wartime bombing. The video consists of images of the places, works, and fragments, along with moments of work, stories, methodology, and stimuli that inspire the restorers.

At a later date, the artist created a new series of sculptures that will be exhibited in dialogue with the video. The glazed ceramic sculptures, were made during a series of workshops, in collaboration with MIC restorers, nullifying any hierarchical order between artist and craftsman. Assembling together elements created by different hands, shaped from an imaginative interpretation and linked to the memory of works restored in the past by the workshop. Reversing the usual roles, this time it will be the artist who will reassemble together the fragments created by the restorers, giving shape to the sculptures, without prior knowledge of the work that initially inspired the shapes of the “fragments.”

The project as a whole, thus aims to address themes related to fragility and memory, while narrating how Italian excellence and “know-how” is used to rearrange chaos, giving a second life to works that would otherwise be forever lost or locked up in storage rooms. A choral work in which individual parts listen to each other and meet.

Result of the ministerial call Cantica 21, which also includes collaboration with MAMbo in Bologna. The video and sculpture We Don’t Find The Pieces They Find Themselves will enter MAMbo’s permanent collection following the exhibition organized at the MIC spaces in Faenza.

The exhibition is set up in the Project Room and the Faenza exhibition halls.