Progetto, Via Idomeneo, 72, Lecce (2026)

19/08/2026

Niloufar Emamifar at WIELS, Brussels
Call me gravity
June 12 – September 20, 2026

Niloufar Emamifar
The Wolves, 2025
Polyurethane resin, soil, asphalt, dust
380 x 47 x 3.5 cm

Call me gravity brings together international artists who explore these dynamics primarily through sculptural forms embedded in the building’s post-industrial architecture. The works draw attention to what remains invisible — what is considered useless or superfluous, such as forms of labour and care, yet proves indispensable to the system. They also point to the shrinking of the public sphere and its infrastructure, caught in the grip of capital, and raise questions about artistic production itself.

The thematic exhibition Call me gravity explores the concept of debt from various angles — focusing in particular on its impact on bodies and contemporary perceptions. Beyond its economic meaning, debt encompasses social, spatial, historical and emotional dimensions. It manifests concretely in the proliferation of credit lines, but also lurks in what eludes measurement, in what is neither accounted for nor recognised.

Artists: Dora Budor, Niloufar Emamifar, Annaïk Lou Pitteloud, Georgia Sagri, Gianna Surangkanjanajai, and Sung Tieu

Curator: Pauline Hatzigeorgiou
Curatorial interns: India Ricchi and Théo Jack Scherer

The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of performances, film screenings and talks and an upcoming publication.

Niloufar Emamifar WIELS Pauline Hatzigeorgiou

Photos 1-4, 6 Fabrice Schneider, 5 Simon Veres

18/08/2026

Niloufar Emamifar at WIELS, Brussels
Call me gravity
June 12 – September 20, 2026

Niloufar Emamifar
Manduria, 2025
Polyurethane resin, soil, dust, rocks, glass
272 x 137 x 5.5 cm

Manduria is a cast of a site in Puglia, Italy. The work is part of an ongoing series of site-specific sculptures that translate legal and bureaucratic abstractions into material form. These sites are identified through a process of fieldwork that draws on local knowledge, oral accounts, and encounters with municipal and administrative systems.

Call Me Gravity
with Dora Budor, Niloufar Emamifar, Annaïk Lou Pitteloud, Georgia Sagri, Gianna Surangkanjanajai & Sung Tieu

WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels
Curated by Pauline Hatzigeorgiou
June 12 – September 20, 2026

Niloufar Emamifar WIELS Pauline Hatzigeorgiou

Photos 1-4 Fabrice Schneider, 5-9 Simon Veres

12/08/2026

Dora Budor: MY ENERGY COMES FROM FREEDOM
Preludes by Camilla Wills, Eleanor Ivory Weber, Henrik Olesen and Yvo Cho
Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany
June 27 – September 6, 2026

Dora Budor’s exhibition takes dissociation as its mode of perception, where the loss of ground becomes a cumulative, shape-giving force. At Bonner Kunstverein, Budor negotiates Haus-Rucker-Co’s mid 1980s conversion of a flower market into a contemporary art center as it exists today. Rather than filling its singular hall, she moves through the architecture, drawing form from the psychic energies of social and economic life. Sculpture, video, sound, installation, and the work of other artists strategically engage the supposedly non-hierarchical exhibition system, and the freedom it seeks to stage.

The exhibition is accompanied by an essay written by Eleanor Ivory Weber and is structured through a prelude of moving image works by Camilla Wills, Eleanor Ivory Weber, Henrik Olesen, and Yvo Cho. Installed in the spaces that precede or surround the exhibition, these works speak on the limits and failures of language, social structures, morals, and value.

‘Art is not something that sits on top of reality, as if reality were merely a given upon which we walk for the sake of distraction from that given. What we call ‘reality’ is already a scene of sorts, where a principle we will never have direct access to lines the wings. The point is not to flood the wings with light. At the very least that would mean the show would be over, but, more, there’s just nothing there to expose. The principle cannot be witnessed. The point, instead, is to play in such a way that the principle in whose name your part will come to be written (but to which you have no direct access) illuminates the scene. This is the situative, imaginal space where energy comes out of nothing. I open the soles of my shoes, I see the money. The principle that got it there – obscure to me – is what intrigues, not the bills themselves.’ – excerpt, Eleanor Ivory Weber

dorabudor Viktor Neumann

Photos: Oskar Lee

11/08/2026

Niloufar Emamifar at Kunstverein in Hamburg, A Nail to Hang the Day On, Curated by Anthony Huberman and Milan Ther, June 5 – September 22, 2026

Niloufar Emamifar
Cinema Anita, 2025
177 × 1600 × 270 cm
Wood, paint, nails, and glue

The Teatro Anita, constructed between 1922 and 1925 in Poggiardo by Avv. Paolo Pispico, was conceived as a project to promote popular culture through the adaptation of part of an adjacent ancient convent next to the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

Inaugurated in 1925 with the operetta ‘Il paese dei campanelli’, the theater soon encountered financial difficulties, leading to its conversion into a silent film cinema in 1928, a function it maintained until the advent of sound cinema in 1934. Substantial renovations in 1950 included the removal of the original box seating. The theater has remained vacant for the past thirty years.

All acoustic wooden wall panels from Cinema Anita were removed and installed in the final room of Progetto, and then reinstalled at Kunstverein in Hamburg, following the architectural configuration of the space while maintaining the original dimensions of the panels.

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Kunstverein in Hamburg
A Nail to Hang the Day On
Curated by Anthony Huberman and Milan Ther

With Georges Adéagbo, Stefano Arienti, Nairy Baghramian, Franco Bellucci, Beatrice Bonino, Hanne Darboven, Nicolas Deshayes, Miho Dohi, Niloufar Emamifar, Laura Lamiel, Brianna Leatherbury, Jac Leirner, CrossLypka, Liliana Moro, Anna Oppermann, Stéphanie Saadé, Timothy Lee Standring, Adrián Villar Rojas, Bri Williams

Images: Niloufar Emamifar with Nairy Baghramian, Beatrice Bonino, Nicolas Deshayes, Hanne Darboven

Niloufar Emamifar Kunstverein in Hamburg Anthony Huberman
photos 1-4: Edward Greiner, photos: 5-9: Simon Veres

11/05/2026

The Air Conditioner (2016-2025) was produced in Lecce, Italy from iron ingots melted down from a decommissioned air-conditioning unit originally located in an insurance company in Tehran. The unit first appeared as part of a temporary public sculpture in Tehran in 2016. It was subsequently reassembled and returned to its original site in northeast Tehran, where it remained in operation until November 2018. The work was then transported to New York and melted into iron ingots, which were exhibited at the SculptureCenter in 2019 and again in 2021. In 2025, Emamifar brought the ingots to Lecce, where a local ironworker carved them into doorstops.

These were exhibited in Disjecta at Progetto, Lecce, where they functioned to hold open the gallery’s doors. At Emalin, the doorstop continues this operation: here it holds open a door not usually accessible to the public

Niloufar Emamifar
The Air Conditioner, 2016–2025
Mixed iron
2.5 x 8 x 4 cm

Niloufar Emamifar
The Air Conditioner, 2016–2025
Mixed iron
1.5 x 8.2 x 3 cm

Contour Fatigue II, Emalin, London, UK
17 April – 23 May 2026
Olga Balema, Adriano Costa, Niloufar Emamifar, Namio Harukawa, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Jac Leirner, Kate Spencer Stewart, Franco Vimercati

Courtesy of the artist and Progetto, Lecce.
Photos by Stephen James.

30/04/2026

The new rooftop space at Progetto is connected to the main space by a small passageway, making concurrent programming possible, including exhibitions, screenings, readings, and more.

When we first conceived of the rooftop, we referred to it as the poetry space—or a space for poetry—thinking of poetics as something expansive. The rooftop is visible from the streets below, from the balconies of our neighbors, and from within Progetto. The stairs leading to the roof were designed by Grant Mooney.

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Il nuovo spazio sul tetto di Progetto è collegato allo spazio principale tramite un piccolo passaggio. È destinato a mostre, proiezioni, reading e altro. Siamo felici di espandere Progetto in questo modo e di rendere possibile una programmazione parallela.

Quando abbiamo immaginato per la prima volta il tetto, lo abbiamo chiamato lo spazio della poesia — o uno spazio per la poesia — pensando alla poetica come a qualcosa di espansivo. Il tetto è visibile dalla strada sottostante, dai balconi dei nostri vicini e dall’interno di Progetto. Le scale che conducono al tetto sono state progettate da Grant Mooney.

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Stairs
Grant Mooney & iron work by Emanuele Sergi (Gagliano del Capo)

Railing
La Bottega Del Ferro (Squinzano)

Photos

29/04/2026

Marco Vitale
I am you,
you are me.
Let everything be
for our neighbor.
May 19, 2025, 6pm–sunset
Rooftop Space at Progetto

On Monday, May 19, 2025, from 6pm until sunset, Progetto inaugurated its new rooftop space with Marco Vitale’s work: I am you, you are me. Let everything be for our neighbor.

This durational, site-responsive work unfolded as an act of writing, witnessing, and intimate exchange. It began with a night spent alone writing inside Progetto and extended into a ritual shared with others—through a writing workshop.

Participants who had taken part in a writing process the day prior returned to guide one-on-one encounters throughout Progetto—a quiet choreography of voices, as performers read texts shaped by their time in the space. The rooftop became the place of arrival: a site of listening and shared reflection, as day turned to dusk.

The work closed with a projection of the writings in the Progetto library—a visual echo, both archive and offering.

Participants: Lara Gigante, Marco La Cava, Thomas Lanzellotti, Marvin Vese, Matteo Terzi, Danilo Billermann, Alba Cobo, Lauren Spedicato, Angelica Calabrese.

photos Gianluca Pisicchio

28/04/2026

Vattene Nuvola Nera: Magic and the South
Symposium with Grazia Amelia Bellitta
Sunday, March 30, 2025
13.00 lunch / 17.00 open discussion with food and wine.

On Sunday, March 30, 2025, Progetto presented Vattene Nuvola Nera, a symposium exploring magic, care, and ritual inherent in food. A lunch for 21 guests, symbolizing ‘The World’ in tarot, inspired by the maternal act of nourishment as a form of protection, healing, and rebirth.

As a child, my mother transformed every dish into a daily spell, a medicine that fought weakness and illness, an act of love meant to restore my energy and vitality. But also her despair when I wouldn’t eat. She would suffer too, taking on my discomfort so that I could heal.

In this project, I sought to recreate that gesture of care, transmitting the same protective and regenerative energy to my guests. Every dish became a portal to a symbolic dimension, where food was not just sustenance, but a magical practice that heals and unites. The table, set to evoke the intimacy and imperfection of a home dining space, became the altar of this collective ritual.

The public was invited to observe the ritual, participate in the transformation of the table, and at the end of the meal, reflect and discuss the meaning of this act: food as magic, the meal as a spell, the table as an altar.

Vegetables, cheese, cured meats, meat, and wine were produced by Grazia Amelia’s father from their small family farm in the countryside (Stellosa) in Oriolo, Calabria, and brought to Lecce to be prepared at Progetto. A punk zine menu was created for the event, with a publication to follow.

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Sunday, March 30, 2025 at Progetto:
13.00: Lunch followed by an open community talk at 17.00 with food & wine.
17.00: Progetto opened to all to speak about magic, the South, food as healing, and more.

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Zine Menu / Publication: Panopticon Publishing, Grazia Amelia Bellitta, text by Enrico Camprini. Culinary support: Giulia Baglivo (Apulian chef, Tricase)

Photos by Gianluca Pisicchio

photos by Gianluca Pisicchio

23/04/2026

Niloufar Emamifar is included in Grant Mooney: sum at Museum Abteiberg.

With his relational concept of sculpture, Mooney creates a field of currents and flows between objects from the collection of Museum Abteiberg, selected historical works, and works by other contemporary artists.

The Wolves is a cast site in Puglia characterized as a zone of indeterminacy. This space is materially present yet juridically unsettled, and thus excluded from conventional zoning regulation. The site was identified in Marittima, Italy, through a process of fieldwork that relied on local knowledge and oral accounts.

Niloufar Emamifar
The Wolves
2025
Polyurethane resin, soil, asphalt, dust
402 x 203 x 2.75 cm

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Grant Mooney
sum, curated by Alke Heykes
with Laura Aguilar, Olga Balema, Joseph Beuys, Patricia L. Boyd, Wisrah C. V. da R. Celestino, Hanne Darboven, Melvin Edwards, Niloufar Emamifar, Flint Jamison, Jannis Kounellis, Grant Mooney and Winona Sloane Odette, Robert Morris, Ulrich Rückriem, Karin Sander, and Takis

Museum Abteiberg
29 March – 20 September 2026

Image credits:
1-3 Grant Mooney, sum, installation view, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, 2026.
Courtesy the artist and Museum Abteiberg.
Photo: Studio Kukulies.

4 Photo: Simon Veres

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