Join the Dots/Unire le distanze is a large-scale exhibition at the Salone degli Incanti in Trieste featuring 40 Imago Mundi collections, the biggest exhibition ever presented to the public as part of this project. With the introduction of new art scenes to this remarkable artistic geography, the show encompasses a corpus of 6,354 voices that critically reflect on our complex surroundings, exploring various facets of society through social, political, economical, and environmental themes. The starting point in interpreting this selection from the Imago Mundi archive is inspired by the popular children’s game where a line is drawn between dots in order to outline an object. Join the Dots/Unire le distanze is used here as a metaphor to show the ability – and sometimes inability – to associate one idea with another and to find the “big picture.” Psychologist Reuven Feuerstein (1921-2014), in his theories about projections of virtual relationships, used the connection of dots as a tool to develop thinking skills, thus creating a model that can be applied to many fields in order to maximize the understanding of the world’s complexities. In the case of Imago Mundi, this game functions as a compass, suggesting new itineraries and creating paths between points on a map, thus generating connections between people, ideas and events. The city of Trieste, an emblematic crossroad of civilisations, cultures and history, becomes the centre of a circle of interest that embraces artists from three different continents. A cornerstone ideally traversed by infinite lines, the exhibition questions and renegotiates the relationships between the centre and the periphery. Join the Dots/Unire le distanze is based on the idea of a work in progress. Alongside the Imago Mundi Collections, further art installations, interventions, and events will be developed in collaboration with diverse partners during the whole period of the show. These activities will evoke reflections on three main themes: the relationship between identity and otherness, nature and progress, the material and the immaterial. As such, the exhibition is transformed into a laboratory dedicated to the cultural diversity that characterizes this unique common space created at the Salone degli Incanti.

Nicolas Vamvouklis, Imago Mundi Art Curator

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