The exhibition currently on display at the Mattatoio in Rome, Spazi di Resistenza (Spaces of Resistance), based on an idea by Ivana Della Portella (Vice-President of Azienda Speciale Palaexpo) and curated by Benedetta Carpi De Resmini, is part of the commemorations for the thirtieth anniversary of the end of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the siege of Sarajevo (14 December 1995) and the Srebrenica genocide (11 July 1995).
The works on display bear sensitive traces of memories that unite the experiences of war, and which in this particular conflict in the 1990s are also accompanied by the wounds of a situation that was made possible within Europe.
‘The exhibition,’ says the curator, “is not limited to a historical reinterpretation of those conflicts, but offers a broad and deeply topical reflection on the post-war present. Intertwining art and memory, Spaces of Resistance takes the form of a poetic and political journey through trauma and healing, through the artistic practices of six artists from different cultural, geographical and generational backgrounds: Simona Barzaghi, Gea Casolaro, Romina De Novellis, Šejla Kamerić, Smirna Kulenović and Mila Panić.”
The works, created in a variety of expressive forms, including video, photography, installation and performance, clearly reveal a wound that has not yet healed. Resistance is precisely what arises from the need and the desire to heal this trauma. The strength of this resistance is proportional to the intensity of the trauma that each artist has experienced.
And when the trauma is still alive, the strength comes with particular intensity. Visitors walk through the exhibition welcomed by a space characterised by idyllic images of grass from the work of Gea Casolaro, a peaceful view where words open a window onto what this landscape hides: minefields left behind by the war. This is the emotional geography of Sarajevo, which lives in the tense profile of a landscape defined by the tension between peace and war, which Gea Casolaro has rendered with delicate discretion and in proportion to her experience of living there in 1998. Her work becomes an ideal entry point for those of us who travel through it in our memory, which is now painful, of our estrangement and distance from that era.
This landscape welcomes us to a place where the experiences of some artists are still open wounds that still burn, the media film opens up to controversial and emotionally engaging content.
Literally burning is the agricultural field of the video Burning Field by Mila Panić, an archaic gesture of purification and transformation, a rebirth that can only take place through a cathartic ritual.
We continue our journey and, among the works of Italian artists, we are accompanied by the work of Simona Barzaghi, who has spent, and still spends, several months each year in the Bosnian regions. In Waterline and ZastaWem, the geographical boundaries of Bosnia are crossed in emotional lines woven through stories and testimonies from dozens of co-authors. The work is the result of long journeys in Bosnia, on foot, by boat along the Drina River or by makeshift means, to explore the border territories and arrive at a choral work in progress, a form of resistance where “every stitch is also a political gesture that redefines the conditions of belonging, opening up spaces for subjectivation outside imposed identities, beyond gender, nation and official history”, as Benedetta Carpi De Resmini so aptly describes it.
Let this mention of these works serve as a textual introduction to the exhibition and let visitors explore the other works that follow in the long and evocative space of the Mattatoio, with the anthropological approach of Romina De Novellis, the political approach of Bosnian artist Šejla Kamerić, who repositions subversive force in the power of the body, and the collective healing approach of Smirna Kulenović, who returns to the use of organic elements as active guardians of the wounds of history.
We come to the end of the journey. The tension that emerged at the beginning of the exhibition from Gea Casolaro’s peaceful landscape, an apparently gentle introduction, returns to the earth itself in the works of Smirna Kulenović. There is no need to comment on the power that literally emanates from the beautiful papers of SILENCE OF THE EARTH when we discover that they were made from plants grown above mass graves, mixed with water and local stones.
In Down to Earth by the same artist, where hearing, touch and smell are at the forefront of an emotional game that channels the listening of Bosnian songs sung by elderly women into an installation that forces visitors to come into contact with the earth and assume an intimate and contemplative position that gives the listening an unparalleled intensity, a “living” restitution of the tension between beauty and trauma, between fragility and strength.
Spazi di Resistenza (Spaces of Resistance), curated by Benedetta Carpi De Resmini
Mattatoio, Rome, 11 September – 12 October 2025
The exhibition, promoted by the Department of Culture of Roma Capitale and Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, was organised by Azienda Speciale Palaexpo in collaboration with Latitudo Art Project.
Special event – 3 October 2025
On 3 October 2025, on the occasion of Remembrance and Welcome Day and as part of the exhibition Spaces of Resistance, a special event entitled “Lines of Memory and Resistance” will be held. The programme includes the screening of Ado Hasanović’s documentary, followed by the performance Below the Line by artist Simona Barzaghi, in a dialogue between cinema and the performing arts dedicated to the themes of memory and resistance. The exhibition catalogue (Edizioni Kappabit), with texts by Manuela Gandini, the artists and curator Benedetta Carpi De Resmini, offers a glimpse into the project, accompanied by images that tell stories of resistance and transformation.
images: (cover 1) Gea Casolaro, “L’erba di Sarajevo #2” (The Grass of Sarajevo #2), 1998–2025. 60 Lambda prints. 46.66 x 70 cm © Gea Casolaro. Courtesy of the artist (2) Simona Barzaghi, Waterline, 2024. Installation, red paint frame, photographs on Dibond, collage drawings, video. 250 x 750 cm © Simona Barzaghi Courtesy of the artist (3-4) Installation view Spazi di Resistenza. Rome Slaughterhouse, Pavilion 9B. Courtesy Latitudo Art Projects © Monkeys Video Lab (5) Smirna Kulenović, SILENCE OF THE LAND, 2024. Natural, plant-based drawing, paper with seeds. 6 elements: 2 elements 160 x 100 cm each – 2 elements 140 x 80 cm each – 2 elements 80 x 140 cm each. Photo © Samuël Berthet. Courtesy of the artist (6) Installation view Spazi di Resistenza. Mattatoio di Roma, Pavilion 9B. Detail ‘Down to Earth’, 2025. Smirna Kulenović. Courtesy of the artist and Latitudo Art Projects © Monkeys Video Lab
