The exhibit develops around the artists’ personal considerations on the concept of family, ranging from the memories of their original birthplaces to their recent experience as adoptive parents. The artists examine the nature of their “mixed” family within the country’s social contest, which seems to show a growing fear and a general mistrust for diversity.

We would like to deal with the show as if it were a sort of letter to our daughter telling her a bit about ourselves, our past, the society we live in, and our work as artists. (Ottonella Mocellin – Nicola Pellegrini).

The youngest members of the community play a pivotal role in this exhibition. A group of pre-school kids is actively involved in the creation of the artwork through a collective work-in-progress, consisting of a series of workshops run by the artists themselves together with the Educational Department of the Fondazione Merz. The workshop is titled “Little boxes”, and it forms an integral and vital part of the exhibition, as the space around it gets constantly transformed. The idea is to consider the exhibition as a living process that is open to different possibilities and various interpretations rather than being a finished project.

Children are asked to consider the idea of home and to reflect upon their relationship with their household, bringing in their own stories and the dynamics of their family groups.