Manuela Alessandrini
The “Body to Body” jouney stems from the idea that the body is much more than a physical reality: it is memory, experience, identity, and connection. Through a dialogue with the sculpture, the participants were invited to focus on a part of their body that they felt was particularly meaningful, choosing it not for its aesthetics, but for the personal connection it evoked.
The body was thought in its broadest sense: not just what it appears to be, but also what it contains within: bones, muscles, organs. Then there is the skin, “a cover” – recalling Didier Anzieu’s concept of the Skin-ego – containing and protecting our inner world and, at the same time, connecting us with the outside world through touch. From this perspective, the body becomes not only an object of representation but an instrument of knowledge, awareness, and connection.
The educational project was conceived by the Education Department of the Omero Museum and implemented between October 2025 and February 2026, involving the city’s day care and residential centers, thanks to the collaboration with the Municipality of Ancona – Disability Services, active since 2015.
The protagonists and the journey
Now let’s break down the numbers: 6 day centers – Laboratori e Mestieri, Il Sole, Centro Papa Giovanni XXII, Il Samaritano, Il Cigno – 30 participants, 8 Center staff, 4 Museum staff, 10 meetings, 10 sculptures, 4 months.
The questions that accompanied these activities were: What’s my favorite part of my body and why? Which one don’t I like at all and why? What emotions does it hold?
Surrounded by the sculptures and bodies that inhabit our contemporary art section of the Omero Museum, we created a space for listening, fostering bodily awareness and the ability to recognize emotions, memories, and sensations that are often difficult to express.
For someone, this dialogue took place through words, for others through a gesture, a graphic sign, a short text, or silence: each expressive modality was welcomed as authentic and meaningful. The encounter with the sculpture thus became an encounter with one’s own history.
In the second session, instant photography captured a moment of recognition and connection between the participant and the artwork. The amazement of seeing the image appear and being able to immediately hold it in their hands made the moment of taking the shot a unique experience, capable of triggering an immediate connection between themselves, the artwork, and their own body. Each participant freely chose whether to photograph a part of the sculpture’s body or their own body in contact with it, constructing a personal and meaningful image. In the workshop, instant photography became a new creative space: the ability to freely modify their photographs with words, colors, marks, and short phrases transformed each image into an intimate and expressive narrative.
In the third session, the experience continued with clay modeling. Reproducing the chosen body part with one’s hands required observation, attention, and time, transforming perception into matter. The choices fell on hands, legs, necks, breasts, and hearts, favorite body parts because they were perfect and beautiful, and parts almost hated because they caused pain or didn’t function as desired. Handwork fostered concentration, independence, and confidence in one’s abilities, allowing them to give concrete form to what initially began as a thought or reflection.
The fourth session focused on the creation of multi-material collages. Paper, fabric, wood, plastic, and various surfaces expanded the expressive possibilities, allowing participants to construct a personal language capable of expressing their own body part and identity.
The final phase was dedicated to assembling the works and planning an exhibition which took place in the day centers: the Museum staff moved in and entered with the artifacts and the work they had completed, sharing their spaces with other members and staff.
This moment represented not only the presentation of the completed works, but also the restitution of a shared journey. Exhibiting means recognizing the value of one’s own experience, feeling part of a group, and offering others an authentic glimpse into one’s own way of perceiving themselves and the World.
From an educational perspective, the project promoted self-knowledge, body awareness, emotional education, self-determination, and the ability to communicate through different languages. The small contemporary art section of the Omero Museum confirms itself as an inclusive space where sculpture is not simply to be observed, but to be experienced, touched, interpreted, and transformed into an opportunity for personal growth.
Publication
This project created a small internal publication, a collection of drawings, words, and stories that emerged from the first meeting, that is, from the initial encounter with the works and the theme of the body that we would shortly address.
The publication, titled Body to body (Corpo a Corpo), is on display in the Museum bookshop and is donated to the protagonists of the project: the workers and coordinators of the day and residential centers in Ancona (Anna Palermo for Laboratori e Mestieri, Rosa di Stasio for Il Sole, Giorgia Sordoni for the Papa Giovanni XXII Center, Alice Paladini for Il Samaritano, Loredana Dottori for Il Cigno) and to the people of the Municipality of Ancona who made this project possible: Maria Rita Venturini and Laura, and the Councilor for Social Services, Manuela Caucci.
I would like to thank my colleagues from the Education Department with whom I shared this project: Cristina Giuliani, Maria Giulia Mengarelli, and Francesca Santi.