"The imagined Garden" is the advanced training project 
for illustrators which will be held from 18 to 20 October 2024 
in the Volpicelli Winter Garden in collaboration with the 
Sarmede International School (Treviso) - S. Zavrel Foundation - 
curated by the teacher Jésus Cisneros (of whom the cover image).

Serena Galluzzi with "ABSOLUTA. Ophélie ou La folie des sentiments"

At the center of the project is a single female figure, Ophelia, and her dissolving in the element of water. The first work "Ophélie ou La folie des sentiments" is a 70x100 cm canvas positioned in the Winter Garden and "Absoluta" is a sheet of plexiglas which will be installed outdoors above a pond.

Maurizio Perissinotto with "Seeds with Sign" and "Lost objects"

If I hand myself over as an oak seed grows, it can only become a tree, already having the complete design within it. The journey of a seed is like our personal journey in life, it contains infinite possibilities of manifestation, yet its movement opens up numerous directions, variations and possibilities. Just as the sprout rises towards the light with great naturalness but also with an incredible effort, we too are attracted, preserving the same matrix within us, by the same light. Every single cell of our body contains the light of which it is made up and its journey in this world will naturally be to fulfill its form. However, the seed does not know the soil on which the wind will make it fall, whether the road where it will dry up or be trampled on or the good earth where it will live and sprout and bear good fruit. An invitation to the sense of exploring, handing oneself over to a choice that is salvific in what is a senseless time for everyone. A time that seems to incessantly dissipate ancient knowledge, that neglects its own seeds or, at worst, tries to modify them. This deadly sense of omnipotence nourished by the arrogance of profit is the obvious consequence of profound ignorance. Intervening in our lives, modifying or erasing every trace of our thousand-year-old cultural and genetic heritage is a crime that we could soon pay dearly for. This is why the vision of a shape was born, a luminous boat, a sort of ark in which some seeds are ideally entrusted to be saved. The idea is to take care of “delivery”. Understanding the profound value of seeds and their codes today is more indispensable than ever, without which our future could only become a crazy, sad unknown.

"Lost objects"

Lost items Lost intruders, often lost... wandering "Lost intruders" are objects that are inadvertently or intentionally abandoned in gardens, stations, parks or places of passage. Among them you can often find the so-called farewell messengers, they have the shape of small engagement ring boxes, or old metal boxes with marbles, toy cars and souvenir photos, small reckless shoes dropped from hasty prams. Things of those who would ultimately swear to take care of them, children of sudden fatal distractions. In the long run, tormented by the elements, they lose their colors and their enamel, taking on the appearance of sad little animals awaiting the return of their owner. Rarely but it is possible to also come across some old garden gnome, a little faded but still smiling. In the wooded park they find their best setting, and from their pedestal they supervise the other intruders. Humbled by the elements, the rain, the sun and the wind, they all stand stoically still in the hope that sooner or later someone will come to collect them. Which rarely happens, but if it does, a shiver seems to run through all the others left as they see one of them leave them to go home with its owner. But more often it happens that some stranger passes by, and out of tenderness or ultimately out of pain, decides to take care of them, taking them with him. They spend long days like this and are often a source of curiosity for small insects who explore them despite their disappointment. Some, the older ones, having now lost hope, decide to let themselves be carried by the wind, walking haphazardly through the empty space around them to end up under a bench or inside a bush. The latter are the "curious", the "wandering" objects, they are those who do not give up, thinking that frequently changing places makes them more visible. They are "involuntary intruders" but in the end, when the hopes of being found are truly over, they show off among themselves the timid ambition of becoming at least small celebratory monuments assuming funny and unlikely poses for this purpose.

Gaetana Gabriella Pitarresi with "Missing Gestures"

The work wants to evoke the candor of the missing gestures 
that fill voids, which are breaths of new air that envelops 
and pervades. 6 meters long, circumference 1.65 and 80 cm: 
Materials: cotton, tarlatana, iron and rubber.