On the ground floor, we first find Tropism (Thin thing, 2024); a Cecchini installation composed of hundreds of polished steel elements that move in space like a climber’s diagram. The installation is presented in large-scale formations distributed across the floor, the walls and the ceiling of the exhibition space in a spontaneous manner. They seem to be jutting out of the surfaces of the building, as if they have always been there. The quadripolar module acts as a vectoral agent that instantly allows the viewer to notice a dynamic of growth where points and lines recall the idea of nature as a mathematical structure or a scientific derivation. The word tropism derives from the Ancient Greek τρέπομαι (trépomai) and translates as "to turn". It refers to the movement of the various organs of a plant (roots, stems, leaves, flowers, etc.) in response to environmental stimuli usually prompted by a chemical or physical agent. This is one of the sensibilities through which Cecchini and Consani’s works whisper to one another, as both artists pay attention to the inherent ways of nature vs human intervention in nature in their respective artistic practices. Walking through the meandering spaces of ieedificio57, it is easy to make profound connections between their works. On the first floor –  to which I will later lead you - Michelangelo Consani continues to expand his reflections on the relationship between production and degrowth, and the dominant political system and the marginal people. Taking inspiration from the theories of Austrian theologian Ivan Illich, and following through his artistic practice since the 1990s, Consani he presents a series of works that share the common title, The Seed of Man, making a direct reference to Marco Ferreri's 1969 film that reflects on the looming apocalypse. Occupying two corridors and three rooms on the main floor of ieedificio57, Consani stages a project that manifests as a small museum of humanity and takes us on a journey of culture, history and the language of design. The essence of which reminds me a tad of Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence.

Returning to the second room on the ground floor, we are drawn in by Cecchini’s Zigzags particles (Bird, 2023) and Zigzag particles: Bird on structure (Owl, 2023), a new series of sculptures in cast aluminium, an owl and a bird perched on small structures, filled to the brink with the idea of matter in transformation. A long-standing symbol of wisdom, intuition and independent thinking, the owl’s granular/particle forms of transpire in continuous deformation during which their orientation and density suggest the actual making of these subjects through a process of aggregation and disintegration. Representing a sense of transitional morphology which avoids confinement and finds analogies in the chemical-physical processes of molecular aggregation, the cast aluminium sculptures become a visual vehicle for an image on the brink of kinetic transition, as if the reference object is transforming into something else, flowing from one state of the matter to another in a high-density liquid metamorphosis. And beyond, a bird - a symbol of freedom - is static, it has become part of the walls that contain it. A free yet caged bird, alludes to the idea that things can transform into what you wish to see in them. They can be from the past, present or future and they can also be part of you. With its rustic walls and ceilings, the physical building of ieedificio57 resonates another feeling; a hard to pin-down sense of melancholy wafts through its spaces. It makes you imagine its past as a family home. 

Predisposed to research and experimentation, Cecchini intently focuses on innovative materials, particularly plastics and metals and on processes related to their growth, accumulation, crystallization. For this special exhibition, and for the first time, Cecchini is observed working with graphite, experimenting on natural materials such as wool paper and linen canvas. His research results in a work displayed on a wall as well as a site-specific installation for the underground "Zattera" (“Raft”) room, envisioned to host projects in the future. This is where we find Cecchini's work titled, 3 - KNO3C (2024). Installed underground in the building's old stone and brick cellar and creating a spatial-physical-temporal continuum with the space that hosts it, the work is a three-dimensional low-relief that reworks the image of potassium nitrate crystals (KNO3) as seen under a microscope. The graphite design relief rises from the surface of the floor, similar to how saltpetre has formed on the walls due to humidity over time.

The monochrome yet vibrant surface of Aeolian Landforms (black drawing, 2024) exhibited on the ground floor, signifies air and water erosion. Saturating our gaze with nocturnal black that completely floods the site of the work, eccentric vibrations propagate on the surface of the canvas as sand dunes arrange themselves in the natural landscape. The hypnotic undulation on the surface presents a metaphor for interiority but also "landscape colour" as an emotional field. Inland seas and their islands share certain attributes such as flora and fauna, climate and landforms. If you have been to one, you have been to all. This particular work by Cecchini recalls to my mind landscapes of Aegean islands and twilight over rippling sea.

Exit this room and walk into the second room across the hallway and you’ll meet two other chairs, The Masters Chair and Mezzadro which in Consani's practice once again become pedestals for two sculptures. Designed by Philippe Starck and Eugeni Quitllet, the former is a tribute to three of the most iconic chairs of all time: Arne Jacobsen’s Series 7 Chair, Eero Saarinen’s Tulip Chair and Charles Eames’s Eiffel Chair. The profiles of the backrests of these three chairs are overlapped and intertwined to create a hybrid with the intention that The Masters Chair may one day also hold an emblematic place in the field of design. A sizeable concrete and contorted head rests on the chair. Unrecognisable yet unforgettable. 

When Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni designed Mezzadro in 1970, they thought of an object that could be made with readily available components used in the agriculture industry. In fact, Mezzadro consists of three parts – all of which are tractor components: an iron seat, a crossbow and a crossbar. Another example in which, for the artist, the seat serves as the base for a sculpture: a woman's bust with open eyes, pure and rugged, she may as well have been found at an archaeological excavation somewhere in Greece even though she is also made of concrete. She is the anchor that holds the chair in place and she is perhaps the former self of the contorted head sitting on The Masters Chair a couple of steps across. How things change... Those that  were once decision-makers can one day become trapped by their very own choices. 

In a smaller room, on the left side of the corridor that links the rooms to one another, the exhibition is completed by one of Consani’s signature installations, The Seed of Man (Masanobu Fukuoka, 2016/2024); a wooden crate normally used for the transport of goods accommodating a terracotta bust of the Japanese agronomist Masanobu Fukuoka. The room is lit up by a video projection of a cicada that disperses energy. A simple and spontaneous act of love during which the insect, unlike in the rat race created by humanity, is not conditioned by the harassing demands of production. For me, this was possibly the most touching part of “Brainstorming” due to my appreciation of Masanobu Fukuoka’s philosophy. To read further on the connection between Consani and Fukuoka’s practices you can click here. For me, the only downside was the lack of breathing space in this particular room. I wish I could have stood back from the work and experienced it for longer.