Eleonora Roaro. LA NUBE
Dates: 12 October 2025 – 25 January 2026
Venue: mudaC | museo delle arti Carrara (Via Canal del Rio 1, MS Carrara, Italy)
Curators: Cinzia Compalati and Vanina Saracino (IKT Member)
Artists: Eleonora Roaro
The artistic and curatorial project LA NUBE (THE CLOUD) investigates the environmental consequences of the Zona Industriale Apuana (Apuan Industrial Zone, or Z.I.A.), situated between Massa and Carrara, with particular attention to the explosion of Farmoplant (formerly Montedison-Diag) on 17 July 1988, the last in a series of incidents which led to the dismantling of the chemical complex.
Eleonora Roaro’s site-specific audio-video installation is divided into 12 parts, corresponding to industrial-inspired tracks composed by the musician Emiliano Bagnato, which combine instrumental parts, synthesizers, field recordings and songs. It retraces the key phases in the history of the Zona Industriale Apuana from the Fascist era until today. The result is a reflection on the environmental and social impact of the economic boom, and on the post-truth narratives constructed by the media and industries for political and economic interests.
The protagonist of the video is the ZIA (in Italian, a pun between ZIA/AUNT and the acronym of Apuan Industrial Zone), a woman from Alteta (a district of Massa situated within the industrial zone), who is a personification of the Apuan Industrial Zone and its contradictions. With a character design based on herself, the artist gives voice to the project, interpreting both documents of the period and original texts. The illustrations and animations created by Corinne Ingegnieri and inspired by DIY punk graphics function as a frame narrative, marking the passing of time through the changes in the ZIA’s house and the transformations in the landscape seen from her window. They also serve as a connecting thread between heterogeneous archive materials such as Super8 films, VHS-C, newspaper articles, drawings, photographs, flyers and digital videos.
LA NUBE reproposes the countercultural protests and political activism, focusing in particular on citizens’ movements such as the Assemblea Permanente dei Cittadini di Massa e Carrara (Permanent Assembly of the Citizens of Massa and Carrara), Medicina Democratica (Democratic Medicine) and the environmentalist associations active between the 1970s and 1990s, denouncing the impact of the Apuan Industrial Zone on the environment, public health and safety at work, and fought against misinformation. For this reason, for the mudaC the artist has selected and curated archive materials, photographic works and documentaries created in the last 30 years by artists, activists and scholars who have links with the territory, thus constructing a choral narrative which enriches the exhibition itinerary. The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of talks and workshops which examine the project’s themes from environmental, historical and political perspectives.