Project Room #11 | Caroline Mesquita. La Casa dell’Eremita sul Naviglio

The House of the Hermit on the Naviglio by Caroline Mesquita is the second appointment of the Project Room 2019, a series of exhibitions focused on the research and production of artists under 40 who are innovatively exploring sculpture, curated this year by guest curator Cloé Perrone.

Thanks to the collaboration with the Fonderia Nolana del Giudice in Naples, the Foundation has given the French artist Caroline Mesquita (1989, Brest) the opportunity to create a new monumental sculpture and to use new materials in her work, such as stone. The installation is indeed made of light beola – an ancient stone of Lombard origin that covers the entire surface of the Foundation's exhibition space – and objects in copper and brass, carefully selected by the artist.

The exhibition stages the imaginary story of a hermit who lived in a stone hut that has survived over time and is now on display at the Foundation. The story tells that the city expanded around the hut, protecting this important refuge, symbolizing an alternative way of life based on withdrawal, isolation, and rejection of social norms. The House of the Hermit on the Naviglio thus becomes a metaphor for a way of life no longer accepted by society: an existence lived outside the logic of the system according to autonomous rules.