We engage in conversation with artist Giorgia Mascitti (San Benedetto del Tronto, 1995) and curator Miriam di Francesco (Atri, 1988) on the occasion of her solo exhibition “Davanti a un gran bosco” (In front of a large wood) at THEPÒSITO Art Space, conceived in conjunction with the “Rigenerarsi” Festival in Narni. The artist and curator discuss the works on display, evoking their fairytale, dreamlike, and imaginative dimensions as metaphors of the contemporary.
Giorgia Mascitti, “Davanti a un gran bosco”, curated by Miriam di Francesco installation view, ph. Aldo Destino, courtesy the artist and THEPÒSITO Art Space
Sara Buoso: Could you tell us about your background and the nature of your relationship with regard to the exhibition Davanti a un gran bosco?
Giorgia Mascitti: I trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Macerata and, although I majored in decoration, soon I was influenced by illustration and drawing. After a stint in Rome between 2021 and 2022, I moved to Pescara, where I met Miriam. She was a light in the darkness and collaborating was a natural fit: she often visited my studio, and I followed her articles. Together, we visited THEPÒSITO Art Space where we developed a mutual influence.
Miriam Di Francesco: I pursued more theoretical studies, graduating in philosophy. This followed a Master’s degree in Museography, Museology and Cultural Heritage Management. Then I dedicated myself to curating and writing, which for me is something that comes from afar. One thing that brought me closer to Giorgia was the sharing of ideas, thoughts and practices. I already knew Lorenzo Rubini, director of THEPÒSITO, to whom I wanted to introduce Giorgia, and the exhibition Davanti a un gran bosco felt like the culmination of a natural process.
Giorgia Mascitti, “Davanti a un gran bosco”, curated by Miriam di Francesco installation view, ph. Aldo Destino, courtesy the artist and THEPÒSITO Art Space
Why fairy tales? And more, specifically, why did you choose to deal with the Brothers Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel (1812) fairy tale, here interpreted through the imaginary of Tim Burton as seen in the homonymous short film, 1983?
Giorgia Mascitti: My research stems from an interest in magic and myth. Fairy tales in particular, have always been at the center of my attention since I was a child, thanks to artist Tim Burton, both a cartoonist and a film-director. Burton’s sources of inspiration in my practice include the use of stop-motion, as well as the creation of low-budget works. Magic also accompanies my work and my daily life: I read cards, delve into esoteric studies, and follow a Wiccan group in Italy. I recently rediscovered a rare 25-minute short film by Tom Burton which was screened on the Disney Channel in 1983, on Halloween at 10 p.m. This short film captured all the key points of my research: it was like rediscovering something I knew but had forgotten. In the video, Burton chooses to let Hansel and Gretel and their family being interpreted by Japanese characters, a culture I’m very fond of. The well-known witch from the fairy tale throws stars to hit the children (like a shuriken), the same stars that appear in my work. Another interesting thing is that Hansel and Gretel’s father, rather than being a carpenter like in Brothers Grimm’s original, in Burton’s film is a toy maker. I’ve always collected toys, even abandoned ones, to transform into models for my work.
Miriam Di Francesco: Giorgia’s influences were not yet part of my education, but they allowed me to reflect on the theme of play and gaming in literature, pedagogy, sociology, and philosophy, and all of these references have informed my curatorial and critical research. Huizinga, with his pivotal essay Homo Ludens, 1946, likely marked a watershed moment in the interdisciplinary theme of gaming, but he is certainly not the only twentieth-century thinker to have recognized play as one of the quintessentially human characteristics. Last year, I read Keith J. Hayward’s essay Infantilized: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood, in which the author, drawing on sociological research, reflects on how a consumer society conceals the phenomenon of programmed infantilization, aimed at becoming the perfect consumer of goods. In this context, play no longer seems to be considered a place of formation, education, and the psychophysical development of children, but rather a phenomenon that concerns adults. Current trends in the economic growth of toys for adults demonstrate this. Hayward’s positions reflect a generational discourse that concerns us all, especially considering the impact of new technologies, and it is from these premises that I wanted to support and complement Giorgia’s research.
Giorgia Mascitti, “Davanti a un gran bosco”, curated by Miriam di Francesco installation view, ph. Aldo Destino, courtesy the artist and THEPÒSITO Art Space
Would you like to discuss the works on display, and in particular Slideshow, 2025?
Giorgia Mascitti: My work is rooted in drawing but expands across different media. In the exhibition, the diptych Sui balocchi i sogni si adagiano (On toys dreams land) features a series of small-format sculptures in polymer clay and modeling clay, all supporting oil pastels on wood. For the first time, I’ve included a multimedia work in the exhibition, Slideshow, 2025. I intentionally wanted to use the Nintendo 2DS format because, in addition to referencing my interest in the gaming culture as an active player, I am fascinated by its parietal and participatory aesthetics. Within this system, the viewer is asked to interact with a series of photos and videos, which are video notes taken from the process of the exhibition, and these can be actively modified if the viewer decides to draw on the same images and save these images. It’s also possible to play with the video and audio systems using the provided headphones. Slideshow is a new work, and I was interested in seeing the viewer’s reaction to such an iconic yet decontextualized device. The ultimate goal of this work is to preserve the images edited by the public in a shared archive.
Miriam Di Francesco: Of course, I was interested in the playful aspect of the exhibition, but even more in bringing Giorgia’s work to light by exploring the concept of threshold. The works presented often don’t end where the canvas ends. The same phenomenon occurs in the video, which attempts a dialogue between the physical and the virtual. It’s as if one were experiencing a sort of crossing. This also explains the title of the exhibition, Davanti a un gran bosco, because the forest is not just an imaginary place, but carries with it ambivalence and complexity, as well as numerous literary and philosophical references. To stand before the forest means to confront complexity in a world that at present times, seeks instead to reduce it to binaries or simplifications. The exhibition attempts to do exactly the opposite, that is, to focus on everything that is not measurable or logical, and Giorgia’s interest in esotericism ultimately moves in this direction. This exhibition explores fears, ambitions, and needs, only whispered, evoked, and never explicitly stated, precisely to leave a sort of opening. Meanwhile, we also discovered that in Narni there is a forest within which lies the geographic center of Italy, and so it seemed to us that the forest symbolically conveyed this precise idea of freedom, an invitation to enter the exhibition and play.
Giorgia Mascitti, “Slideshow”, documentazione su nintendo 2DS, cuffie, 14×12,5 cm, 2025, courtesy the artist and THEPÒSITO Art Space
In the works presented, I aesthetically perceive a return to figuration. Is that true?
Giorgia Mascitti: Figuration has always been fundamental to my work: the image is my language. Without the image, I really don’t know where I could get to. I am constantly and stubbornly on the hunt for images. My working notes are born with the camera turned on and an interest in moving bodies, lights, and colors. I collect video frames, moments spent at amusement parks, toys piled up in some corner, hardcore concerts where I capture a shared ritual. When I return to the studio, I precisely like to start from those images to transform them into something else, but still remaining within the realm of figuration. The body probably plays a central role in my practice. I can’t say if it will always be this way, because my research never ends.
Miriam Di Francesco: Figuration is a style that has often resurfaced in recent years. For Giorgia, however, figuration is truly at the center of her work. Personally, I often find these definitions a bit too restrictive, and I believe that the focal point of an artist’s work lies in coherence and authenticity. Working closely with the artist also means embracing an approach, a worldview, a posture, and in this sense, I think there must be strong connections and affinities between an artist and a curator to transcend the work itself. At the end, having the same lenses through which to view the world, this is what is truly important.
Info:
Giorgia Mascitti. Davanti a un gran bosco
curated by Miriam Di Francesco
8/11/2025 – 11/01/2026
THEPÒSITO Art Space
Via del Parco, 1 – Narni Scalo (TR)
www.theposito.com
She is interested in the visual, verbal and textual aspects of the Modern Contemporary Arts. From historical-artistic studies at the Cà Foscari University, Venice, she has specialized in teaching and curatorial practice at the IED, Rome, and Christie’s London. The field of her research activity focuses on the theme of Light from the 1950s to current times, ontologically considering artistic, phenomenological and visual innovation aspects.
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