Carrara | MudaC – project room | 24 January - 22 March 2026

La project room del MudaC | Carrara arts museum hosts the exhibition of Julia Nellie (Legnano, 1992) by title Rooted to the depths of the earth, organized by the Municipality of Carrara. The inauguration will take place on 23 January all 17 and the exhibition will remain open until next time 22 March.

The project was selected and awarded by the Toscanaincontemporanea competition 2025 of the Tuscany Region which provides economic support for activities that promote production, the knowledge and diffusion of contemporary creativity in the field of contemporary visual arts.

Two initiatives are planned as part of the exhibition: Saturday 21 March all 17, the meeting on the topic “The courage to descend into Hell (to find each other)” with Massimo Seriacopi, professor of Literature and PhD in Dante Philology at the University of Florence; followed by the presentation of monograph with installations by Giulia Nelli created by 2022 to the 2026 edited by Vanillaedizioni. Sunday 22 March all 16, Giulia Nelli will host the laboratory “What's underneath?” for children and families.

Julia Nellie, through a symbolic journey through the forest, reveals the hidden fragilities of nature and man, inviting renewed respect and soul-searching beyond the illusions of control, supporting the importance of rediscovering the deep roots that bind each person to a territory in its different naturalistic aspects, cultural and economic, to find the strength to abandon a limited and selfish vision of reality and develop genuine and supportive relationships.

Through the representation of timeless landscapes, who have lost all beauty, and subsoil layers rich in life that is often compromised in its biodiversity, in which the blackened roots dangled without purchase, the works chosen intend to express the extreme vulnerability of life as we have known it so far and the need to respect it without feeling less free because of this. The exhibition also aims to be an internal journey, which investigates the meaning of life and a pressing perception of emptiness, supporting the importance of searching deeply, bypassing the thrill of evidence, the myth of transparency, the illusion of control. The installation, named Among brushwood and thorny brambles, uses the journey through the woods as a metaphor for a journey into the inner and psychic reality of man. The forest, which in Dante Alighieri's work becomes the "dark forest" as an allegory of evil and sin, it is also the archetypal space of myths and fairy tales, it is a ground of initiation, treacherous place of solitude, where the ego and the profound nature of man meet, the soul, the sacred, the unknown and the wild. The journey of self-discovery is often represented as an odyssey through a hostile forest, full of weeds, thorny brambles and wild beasts, which however can prove to be a lasting source of treasures, of protection, of energy, of peace and enlightenment.

The works arise from a process of contamination between the world of consumer objects, specifically women's tights, and textile art, drawing from the plot, from the weave and from a material with a high innovation value such as polyamide and elastane, a personal expressive language marked by the simplicity of the shapes and the materiality. The fabric of the tights is torn apart, according to a technique of rupture and decomposition dear to contemporary art, and brought back to the basic element, the thread, which is worked to build new balances and harmonies. The thread represents tradition and history and becomes a symbol of roots, of ties and belonging; at the same time it is also a means through which to speak metaphorically about the connections that bind all men like invisible cobwebs, despite the apparent indifference and the difficulty of establishing sincere and profound relationships. The works are characterized by a language based on the color black and on a calibrated contrast between full and empty spaces. The use of black gives the works elegance, incisiveness, essentiality and formal purity; its symbolic value, tied to the earth and the darkness of the abyssal depths, allows you to fill the representation of the underground with mystery and tension, as well as the deepest interiority of the ego. The use of black is not intended to create gloomy atmospheres in an exaltation of negativity, but it intends to represent the natural drama inherent in life and the fears that too often imprison beauty in black plots of superstructures and walls erected to defend one's self.

In the critical presentation text of the exhibition Jacqueline Ceresoli writes: «Giulia Nelli, multifaceted and post-existentialist artist, he does not limit himself to weaving works and environments with acrylic fabrics in which artificial and natural converge, but with this exhibition created for the mudaC project room it overcomes the dualism between culture and Nature, transforming its pitch-black nylon threads into ideal twigs and brambles, to stage a metaphorical “dark forest” echoing Dante, to be walked through rather than looked at, and to be perceived as a declaration of self-awareness of wanting to overcome the causes and devastating effects of the Anthropocene, in an attempt to broaden one's perception of the real world, where together with the spectator we share or rediscover a lost humanity".

Julia Nellie. Rooted to the depths of the earth

24 January - 22 March 2026
Inauguration: Friday 23 January at 17

MudaC | Carrara arts museum
project room
Via Canal del Rio, 54033 Carrara

Opening Hours: from Tuesday to Sunday 9:30-12.30 and 15-18

Entrance to the museum (including visits to the exhibitions):
entire 5 Euro, reduced 3 Euro, free available

Monograph: Vanillaedizioni

Info:
Tel. +39 0585 779681
mudac@comune.carrara.ms.it
mudac.museodellearticarrara.it
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