The starting point of the exhibition was the profound shift in the meaning of “home” in contemporary experience, particularly after the pandemic period and the collective confinement summed up by the phrase “Stay at Home.” Home ceased to function solely as a physical space of protection and boundary, and was transformed into a function of the psyche. The dividing lines between private and public, personal and collective, proved to be fluid and unstable, leading individuals to the need to reorganise their relationship with the world.

The exhibition approached dwelling as a survival mechanism. Faced with an uncertain, threatening, and often unpleasant external reality, the self constructed an inner place: an inland of the self. Drawing conceptually from the thought of Paul Valéry, “home” reappeared as an internal topography, as a mental and emotional space organised to offer protection, yet at the same time bearing the risk of isolation. The self was structured as an autonomous and self-sufficient world, often impenetrable, where the familiar is internalised and reproduced.

A crucial role in this process was played by the impact of technological and digital conditions. In the contemporary experience, the home of the self functioned as an interface. The gaze was mediated by screens, experience was organised through images and information, while the “inside” and the “outside” communicated mainly digitally, rather than experientially. The individual inhabited a mental system of data, attempting to structure it as a real world.

The works in the exhibition did not aim to abstractly describe this condition, but to embody it visually. Through different materials, techniques and personal artistic languages, they highlighted dwelling as a psychological and symbolic experience that radically transforms our relationship with society, others, and ourselves.