On Saturday, October 17, 2026, at 6:00 PM, the STORIECONTEMPORANEE project, curated by Anna Cochetti, in the Studio Ricerca e Documentazione space at Via Poerio 16/B, will host a presentation by Michiel Blumenthal and Graziella Reggio. Titled "The Garden," the project presents a complex project conceived and created by several artists. Through the medium of drawings, photographs, and words, real and imaginary places have woven a long-distance dialogue between the authors and the subjects/objects of the representation—from Milan to Lerici to Rome. These dialogues broadly evoke the ideas, writings, and drawings of Gilles Clément, the founding father of the Manifest du Tiers paysage, according to which "The Garden represents the planet as a garden. The feeling of ecological finitude makes the limits of the biosphere appear as the enclosure of the living."
Michiel Blumenthal, through drawings born naively and fantastically from his experiences of all the places of his soul, of which "the garden" is the cultural, philosophical, and existential summa, translates their accents and colors into images, almost drawn dreams. Michiel Blumenthal—an artist-gardener in search of a garden, in search of peace, in search of paths, in search of himself—creates "a garden as a metaphor: on the one hand, you confront the harshness of nature, on the other, it is a metaphor for what you don't know and for your way of relating to reality...", as in the words that accompany his biography in "The Garden, Seven Years Between Dream and Reality...Or the Evolution of a Garden...and What Cannot Be Seen...".
With her black-and-white "photographic portraits," shot with a 6x6 analog camera, Graziella Reggio traverses places and environments on the threshold, in that southern part of Milan, not far from the city center, where the city ends abruptly and the boundary is quite clear, except for a small intermediate strip where the urban and the natural blend. There, Graziella Reggio captures "the ancient soul of Milan," where along the border, low walls, fences, and various abandoned structures live in symbiosis with creepers, weeds, flowers, and are home to wild animals (herons, ibises, etc.). In the fascination of landscapes, in the constant transformations of nature, the artist recognizes emotions and similarities with her own artistic journey.
On Saturday, November 7th, at 5:30 pm, during the Finissage, the artist's book will be presented, printed in a limited edition, numbered and signed by the authors.
Michiel Blumenthal lives and works between Amsterdam, Spoleto, and Lerici. Graziella Reggio lives and works in Milan.
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