LA TERRA SU CUI CAMMINO: Duo Show

La terra su cui cammino (The Earth I Walk On) explores the relationship between humans and the ground they inhabit - walking on it, getting to know it, and narrating it - through the work of Ava Grauls and Julia Gault.

The ground is the central subject of the works on view and is explored from different perspectives by the two artists. While Grauls investigates its territorial and ideological meaning, Gault focuses on its material nature, highlighting its fragility and, at the same time, an unexpected and overwhelming force that has long been kept under control by human intervention. To what extent can humans impose themselves on the power of nature? And for how long will we continue to relate to the earth as a territory to be conquered, and historically conquered?

In Ava Grauls’ practice, the ground emerges as a mapped territory, marked by borders and official narratives that overlap and often come into conflict with individual memory. Her abstract maps deconstruct the ideological narratives imposed by history and colonialism, revealing the planet as a cartographic construct. Her biographical condition—shaped by movement from South Africa to different geographic contexts—has led her to explore the relationship between identity and place, and how the contingency of inhabiting the world can shape personal identity.

In Julia Gault’s practice, the relationship between humans and the ground opens up to an existential reading. The nature of the ground as a material element- arbitrary, unstable, and fragile- is explored through installations that reveal these qualities. Gravity, weight, and physical forces make the ground both precarious and impossible to fully control. The human desire to impose order and stability onto this unstable matter is thus called into question.

La terra su cui cammino reflects an ongoing movement across the earth, expressed through abstract, emotional, and material languages. How do we walk on the ground, and who are we while doing so? The exhibition becomes a reflection on a relationship with the world that is not fixed or stable, but constantly evolving, contingent, and deeply lived.