Put flowers in your cannons

In a world that is increasingly unjust, cruel, and racist, a moment of peace.

Put flowers in your cannons.

In an era marked by the resurgence of bloody conflicts, the brutality of global wars, and the blind reaffirmation of the law of the strongest, the exhibition proposes itself as a space for stopping, reflection, and awareness. We are living in a historical moment in which cruelty, violence, and racism seem to pervade the political and social landscape, driven by authoritarian and reactionary dynamics that demand a critical and participatory response.

To avoid the trap of a rhetorical or circumstantial narrative, the exposition deliberately chooses not to include direct references to individual contemporary bellic contexts. The objective is not to photograph the chronicle of a single front, but to investigate its deep and universal roots.

Guiding this reflection is also the recall to artistic provocation and sacrilegious irony of the Eighties, evoked by the 1980 work by Luigi Ontani, Tulipano nell’ANO. An irreverent and radical gesture that imposed itself as an act against war, transforming aesthetic impertinence into an instrument of visual and conceptual resistance against systemic violence.

The exhibition path develops through a provocative contrast:
• The relics of war: crude and dramatic testimonies of destruction;
• The works of Fabio Milani: interventions capable of emanating a deep sensation of calm, meditation, and peace.

This visual dialogue invites the visitor to overcome the surface of violence to rediscover the value of political participation, an indispensable instrument to counter the advance of extremisms.

Inspired by the historical and symbolic legacy of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, the exhibition launches a mature and conscious message of peace: a peace that does not coincide with unconditional surrender or with the abandonment of resistance in the face of the oppressor, but which recognizes in reason, dignity, and the right to defense the pillars of true justice.