Group exhibition of contemporary art
Fragmented Nations (on dropping bomb*shells)
- Year
- 2025
- Role
- Co-curator with Carmen Lorenzetti
- Context
- Daniil Revkovskyi and Andrii Rachynskyi, Marco Brambilla, Rashid Masharawi, Sasha Kurmaz, Shabi Habib Allah, Younès Ben Slimane
- Location
- Museo Civico del Risorgimento, Bologna, Italy
Occupying a space between geopolitics, (civil) war, migrations and (surveillance) technology and considering the uncertain nature of present time, Fragmented Nations (on dropping bomb*shells) is set in the historical Museum of the Unification of Italy. As the second exhibition in a larger research series, it intervenes into the museum’s permanent collection by juxtaposing the 19th-century war artefacts with time-based media artworks reflecting on contemporary wars.
In December 2023, the Italian Institute for International Political Studies issued a dossier entitled The World in 2024: The Great Fragmentation, which now, a year later, in retrospective, provides a compelling and firm framework for this exhibition.
Fragmented Nations (on dropping bomb*shells) presents fragmentation both as a geopolitical condition and an existential reality. By positioning contemporary time-based media artworks alongside the historical artefacts of the Museo di Risorgimento, it juxtaposes the aspirations of 19th-century nation-building with the precarities of the 21st-century global (dis)order. This dialogue between past and present illuminates the cyclical nature of conflict and the enduring fragility of national identities. As history and contemporary narratives collide, the forces that shape both the persistence and dissolution of nations are challenged.