Community Threads [Trame di Comunità]

CasermArcheologica is a not-for-profit cultural centre based in the Palazzo Muglioni in Sansepolcro, Valtiberina, Italy. Founded in 2016, the centre plays a transformative role in the region through a programme of residencies, exhibitions, workshops, concerts, festivals, and educational activities. These initiatives have significantly expanded access to culture in the Valtiberina, an area affected by declining public investment and the closure of cultural venues. In April 2025, Lucy Orta was invited by CasermArcheologica and local resident Simonetta Carbonaro (former Professor of Design Management and Humanistic Studies, University of Borås) to develop a project addressing community-building challenges and to contribute to the centre’s growing international profile.

The project began with a phase of community-based participatory research, grounded in collaborative knowledge-sharing around social issues. From this, a framework emerged for a new body of work and exhibition titled ‘Weaving Cultural Threads: Embroidered Stories Stitching Portraits of Past, Present and Future Identities’, later shortened to ‘Community Threads’ [Trame di Comunità], with Carbonaro as curatorial lead. The title evokes a process of social weaving—threads connecting individuals and stories into a shared fabric. Its subtitle articulates a temporal dimension: engaging with memory (past), grounding experience (present), and imagining transformation (future). Embroidery becomes both method and metaphor, shaping personal narratives while anchoring them within a collective sense of place.

Lucy Orta undertook a field trip to the Valtiberina between July and August 2025 to develop an understanding of the territory and its cultural heritage. This included encounters with key historical works by Piero della Francesca (born in Sansepolcro) and Rosso Fiorentino, as well as visits to sites such as the Hermitage of Cerbaiolo, the Small Museum of Diaries in Pieve Santo Stefano, and the historic Busatti linen mill in Anghiari. Central to the fieldwork was a series of encounters with local community, organised by CasermArcheologica, structured around the question: “What threads bind you to this place, and which pull you away?” Additional prompts invited participants to express their responses through symbolic associations—mineral, animal, and vegetal—revealing layered relationships to the territory.

This research informed a practice-led investigation into personal and collective identity, exploring how values, resilience, and potential transformation might be articulated through material and symbolic forms. Visits to the Hermitage and to two paintings by Piero della Francesca—'Madonna del Parto’ and ‘Madonna della Misericordia’—were particularly influential. These works informed the development of the installation as a symbolic and functional gathering space, drawing on the archetype of the Ohel (a tent in Hebrew tradition), understood as a place of protection, encounter, and storytelling.

Prototyping and production began in November 2025 and continued until the exhibition opening on 20 February 2026. Reflective journal notes (October 2025) outline the material and conceptual approach:

- Stories: Embroidered portraits trace the contours of individual faces, with loose threads suggesting narratives that remain open and evolving.
- Gold beads: Symbolic “tongues” evoke voice and testimony—what is spoken, remembered, and transmitted.
- Linen and hemp: Referencing local weaving traditions rooted in necessity, labour, and a direct relationship to the land.
- Baked earth: Terracotta forms, shaped by hand, embody a tactile connection to place through mineral, animal, and vegetal symbols.
- Tension and anchoring: Hanging forms recall whorl (loom weights), creating lines of tension that resonate with oral histories.
- Tent (Ohel): A canopy structure inspired by Madonna del Parto, functioning as a communal space for gathering and exchange.

The resulting installation was presented at CasermArcheologica from 27 February to 15 July 2026. It comprises five circular Ohel tent-sculptures (each 170 cm in diameter and approximately 2.5 m high). Suspended from their canopies are thirty-three handwoven linen hangings (75 × 150 cm), each bearing an embroidered head-and-shoulders portrait of a community member. Unfinished threads are knotted with gold beads, while ninety-nine terracotta amulets—representing mineral, vegetal, and animal forms—hang from the hems.
An adjacent space invites visitors to respond to the same questions posed during the research phase, extending the work beyond representation into active participation.

As articulated in the 2026 press release by Carbonaro:
“The artist invites viewers not to consider this exhibition as a collection of finished works to be passively observed. The fabric sculptures become spaces to move through, and each visitor is called upon to participate in the making of the work by responding to a simple yet powerful question: "What threads bind you to this place, and which pull you away?”

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