Artistic Installations

Out in the open - 24/7 display (2025)

For the exhibition Out in the Open, in collaboration with Pride Art Route 2025, we created a visual installation together with artist and performer Guido Hoek. A video of his song “Since you asked” was played on loop, while meaningful and symbolic lyrics from the songs performed during the vernissage were handwritten on reused canvases. As night fell, vibrant, color-shifting lights brought the installation to life, creating an immersive and ever-evolving atmosphere.

Masks & Mirrors - 24/7 Display (2025)

For the Treehouse display, I created an installation centered around the figure of the Gnaga, a character from Venetian Carnival folklore, reimagined as a queer symbol of disguise and transformation. The central piece was a painted portrait of the Gnaga, surrounded by hand-crafted masks displayed on sculpted heads. Each mask was made using ingredients from the dishes served during the vernissage, merging visual and culinary storytelling. Visitors could scan QR codes to discover the recipes and explore the layered meanings behind the Gnaga’s presence.

The voice of Nature - Food Installation (2024)

Presented during the opening of Art Park II: Voice of Nature at Treehouse NDSM, The Breath of Nature was my first food installation—a multisensory tribute to the Earth’s vitality. A living composition of fruits, grains, and natural materials stood at its core, surrounded by a gentle mist evoking nature’s invisible breath. Sculptural wooden elements echoed the strength and resilience of plant life. Rooted in a zero-waste philosophy, all edible components were later used in the kitchen, transforming the installation into a full-circle celebration of sustainability and interconnection.

100th window - Installation (2015)

presented at Sarpi Bridge – Oriental Design Week, Milan, 2015.

A mutant created from discarded materials: reused plastic cups, multicolor LED lights, photographs by Francesco D’Argento, reflective elements for the eyes; a flexible tube, an old rubber boot, and a tile forming its raw body.

The viewer faces a (non)being with mutant features. One eye reflects a distorted image of the self, returning only blurred traits, while the other reveals visions of places and people encountered during imaginary flights above Milan. Its multicolor neural circuit, a hymn to peace, decomposes and reworks these images into impressionist-like bubbles.

Humankind, forever striving to study the flawless architecture of the insect, here collides with its own imperfection, forced to look deeper within. Infrastructures, shadows in underpasses, flashes of urban light, poetic fragments: the gaze is drawn toward what usually remains unseen.

cocoon - Installation (2015)

presented at Sarpi Bridge – Oriental Design Week, Milan, 2015.

Table lamp featuring a low-consumption multicolor LED spotlight, crafted from recycled materials and dried organic waste.

Like a spider caring for its cocoon until hatching, here the fissure becomes a space-time crack. An asynchronism that presents a current view of Milan already projected into the future, enclosed within a cave-like shell shaped from dried food scraps. Neon lights emphasize the unseen within a familiar place, which now appears more alive than ever through chromatic alternations simulating the flow of hours, minutes, and seconds.

A nymph floating on a thousand stories, an insect-being already emerged from its shell, leaving us all this. Milan opens up to the world in anticipation of Expo. But what will remain of this machine’s gloss and momentum is still uncertain. It is up to us to take care of it, to find balance, to avoid wasting teachings, lives, infrastructures, and spaces—to reclaim them together.

Hope. Mutation. Evolution.
Metaphysical echoes surround our gaze, from whichever angle it rests.

Photo in the installation by Francesco D'Argento

non si butta via niente - Installation (2015)

presented at Milano Design Week for FSDesignHub and Bottega 1911,  2015.

Nutritional needs or just a trend? Both. The spread of new diets inspired Gabriele to rethink food scraps not as waste but as living matter, even when reduced to colorful fibers..

FIBERS is the first step, the simplest one. Old, unused kitchen tools and colored fibers are transformed into scented home accessories to hang or place anywhere. Warm colors and irregular forms contrast with cold, linear steel, creating versatile objects to personalize with fragrances that suit and stimulate the senses. The fibers absorb scents immediately and release them continuously and evenly for days.

SHAPE is the next step. The colored fibers are hand-worked before drying and then used to create unique vases. SHAPE is a multiform container for plants that require very little water—mostly misted ones, like succulents, orchids, and lichens. The nutrients naturally contained in food scraps act as an inexhaustible fertilizer.