MORPHOSIS
On Saturday, 30 August 2025 at 11:15 a.m., the exhibition Morphosis will open at Le Quartier in Valgrisenche (AO). Curated by Barbara Pavan, the project features works by Elham M. Aghili, Giulia Pellegrini, and Elena Redaelli.
The event is presented as part of the seventh edition of Modelaine – Festival of Wool in Valgrisenche, in the Aosta Valley. It is promoted and organized by the Les Tisserands Cooperative, with the support of the Regional Department for Economic Development, Training and Employment, Transport and Sustainable Mobility, the Municipality of Valgrisenche, the Pro Loco, and with the backing of the Compagnia Valdostana delle Acque and the Banca di Credito Cooperativo Valdostana.
THE PROJECT
MORPHOSIS is a multi-voiced reflection on the concept of “transformation” as applied to the mountain, understood as both a physical and symbolic territory in constant flux. The exhibition project brings together the practices of three international artists who, through different visual languages, explore the evolution of the mountain’s environment and culture in light of the demands of contemporary times.
Morphosis — formation/transformation — becomes the interpretive key to a layered and dynamic process: one that engages the mountain not only as an ecosystem but also as a living archive of memory, identity, and perspectives. The works here place geological and anthropic dimensions in dialogue, probing the fractures — both material and symbolic — generated by climate change, the abandonment of territories, and the redefinition of cultural boundaries.
Through installations, video, and performance, the artists activate a research process that moves between scientific observation, direct experience, and artistic re-elaboration, presenting a mountain no longer as an icon of immobility, but as a plastic organism, permeable to the transformations of the present. Art thus becomes a reflection on the form that changes, but also on the change that shapes: an invitation to rethink the relationship between human beings and territory, between memory and future, between crisis and possibility.
THE ART WORKS
On the occasion of the International Year for Glacier Preservation, Elham M. Aghili has created — in collaboration with the textile cooperative Les Tisserands — Melting Flower, an installation that celebrates the ability of alpine communities to transform environmental challenges into opportunities for cultural regeneration. Born from the encounter between contemporary art and artisanal know-how, the monumental alpine flower made from local wool and discarded yarns becomes an emblem of “restanza”: an active permanence that values traditions, materials, and relationships in order to imagine new forms of sustainable development for mountain communities. The work regards the landscape and the mountain as a living laboratory of coexistence and innovation, in which nature, culture, memory, and contemporary visions intertwine to generate the future.
Vagrezèn and Albedoby Giulia Pellegrini are two integrated projects that reflect on the alpine environment through a dialogue between memory, nature, and community. Vagrezèn is a circular textile installation, created using locally sourced reclaimed materials and tangible symbols of the valley’s history and culture, such as Rosset wool and traditional fabrics, which, together with biodegradable geotextile, evoke climate mitigation and the albedo effect. Suspended yet deeply rooted in the territory, the work recounts the wounds and resilience of the landscape through artisanal engravings and embroidery, with a particular reference to the Beauregard dam as an emblem of transformation and reconciliation. Albedo, a participatory performance (scheduled for Saturday, 30 August, at 5:00 p.m.) that unfolds around a double-sided cloak made of innovative fabrics, transforms the glacier from a distant image into a tangible symbol of shared stewardship, engaging the public in a collective gesture of environmental responsibility. Both works combine art, science, and collective action, offering an immersive and reflective perspective for inhabiting and protecting the mountain, while enhancing practices of care and territorial continuity.
By Elena Redaelli is Making Soft Water, a triptych of felt and digital print tapestries accompanied by a soundscape that explores water as an element of connection and memory, translating its impermanence into tactile and visual forms that evoke hidden stories through folds and voids in the fiber. The sound of felt-making intertwines oceanic movements and human gestures, revealing a profound reflection on the interactions between bodies, nature, and life cycles. This research develops further in the video project Infinita lentezza, an ever-evolving work that weaves together body, landscape, and time, fostering a porous and non-hierarchical dialogue between the living and the non-living. Through slow and shared practices of listening and care, the project invites a sensory and emotional mapping of the territory, proposing a new temporality capable of generating wonder, attention, and renewed forms of coexistence between human beings and the environment.
THE ARTISTS – BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Elham M. Aghili (Sassuolo, 1989) is an Italian artist of Persian origin who trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. Her works are part of international permanent collections, including that of Hub 19M, Paris; the Consorzio Colibrì, Bologna; and the Ente Fiere di Romagna, Forlì. Her recent participations include installations at Milan Design Week 2024, at the Cappellini showroom; at Pitti Immagine Filati for Vimar1991, Fortezza da Basso, Florence; The New Bloom at Chanel offices, Milan; at Villa Bellombra, Bologna; at Palazzo Ferrero, Biella; a pop-up installation, Venice; and for Bologna Art City, at Oway, Bologna.
Her group exhibition projects include Threads of Our Time in Chelsea, New York; De Rerum Natura, on the occasion of the opening of the 59th Venice Biennale at the Officers’ Club of the Italian Navy, Arsenale, Venice; Risonanze, at the Civic Art Collections, Palazzo d’Accursio, Bologna; within the Salone Italia for The World Textile Arts 25WTA in Bergamo and at the Textile Museum of Busto Arsizio; and the 2nd International Biennale of Contemporary Fiber Art at MuRTAC, Valtopina (PG). In 2024 she collaborated with the brand Samanta Virginio, for which she designed and created a dress-sculpture published in Vogue Portugal.
Giulia Pellegrini (1990) is a visual artist whose work develops primarily through immersive installations and performances. Her works have been exhibited in numerous group shows in Italy and abroad, including at Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto (Arte al Centro), Circulart2.0 in Biella, the Salone de Montrouge – International Biennial of Contemporary Art and Jeune Création Européenne (JCE) in Montrouge, Paris; the Museu de l’Empordà in Figueres, Spain; Kunstbygningen i Vrå – Englundsamlingen in Hjørring, Denmark; Cēsīs, Latvia; PAV – Parco Arte Vivente (Teatrum Botanicum Emerging Talents) in Turin; Casa Testori in Novate Milanese; Fortezza del Priamar – Autopoiesis in Savona; Forte di Monte Ricco – Dolomiti Contemporanee (Fuoco a Paesaggio) in Pieve di Cadore; and Castello Oldofredi – Un’altra primavera, Artisti per l’equinozio in Bergamo. She has also participated in several artist residency programs, including Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto (Circulart2.0 – Art Interwoven with the Supply Chain, Biella); NAHR Residency (Rock and Stone, Material Culture and Cultures of Making, Val Taleggio); the Empact Artistic Residencies Program at The National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts (NAFTA/NAFTIZ) in Sozopol, Bulgaria; Falia* Artist in Residence in Lozio; Dolomiti Contemporanee in Pieve di Cadore; and Associazione Demetra – Radici, Albero Atmosferico in Terni.
Elena Redaelli (Erba, 1981) graduated in Sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and subsequently earned a Master’s degree in Fine Art from UCA, London. Her artistic practice is defined by an intense and itinerant research, developed through experimentation and collaborations with international institutions. Among her most recent solo exhibitions are: in 2024 Stratarium at AmyD Art Gallery, Milan; in 2020 Uendelig langsomhed at Viborg Kunsthall, Denmark; in 2019 Care, Preserve, Connect at Kunst Treff Punkt in Darmstadt, Germany; in 2018 Nori Monogatari at the Tokiwa Museum in Ube, Japan, as part of the Ube International Sculpture Biennale, and Unravelled Backgrounds at the Zarya Centre for Contemporary Art in Vladivostok, Russia; in 2017 Story of a Place at the Tsung-Yeh Art and Cultural Centre in Tainan, Taiwan, Vestige at Upper Ray Gallery, Treasure Hill, Taipei, and Weaving a Better Future at WAB, Beijing, China. Recent participations in exhibition projects include: in 2025 Rotations Korper – Solids in Revolution, Neue Galerie, Graz, Austria; Covilhã International Design Triennale, New Hand Lab (NHL), Covilhã, Portugal. In 2024 Region Norrbottens konstinköp at Galleri Foajén, Regionhuset, Luleå, Sweden; The Soft in You, The Soft in Me, promoted by Region Norrbotten, KKV Textile Laboratory in Luleå, and sponsored by Culture Moves Europe; International Biennale of Contemporary Fiber Art at MuRTAC – Museum of Embroidery and Textiles in Valtopina, Perugia. From 2023 to 2025 she was part of the artistic research project Simultaneous Arrivals (Simularr) on new forms of collaborative practices, developed within the PEEK program of the Austrian Science Fund. She participated in Sculpture by the Sea in Bondi Beach, Sydney, and in Follow the Thread in New York, as well as in various contemporary art and land art projects and festivals in Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands. She has also been a speaker in international panels at STEAMhouse in Birmingham, UK, and participated as a lecturer in international conferences in Florida and Portugal, and in projects in Puglia, Senegal, Norway, Spain, Italy, Estonia, Denmark, and Iran.
THE VENUE
A borderland and crossroads of stories, Valgrisenche opens just a few steps from France, in the far southwest of the Aosta Valley. Its numerous alpine passes, traversed over the centuries by migrants, merchants, and armies, have made it a territory of passage and exchange. Traces of this past can still be read in the landscape: from the enigmatic eighteenth-century ruins of Maison Forte, to the barracks from the two World Wars built to guard the Col du Mont, to the majestic fort that dominates the main village. Within this historical fabric stands Le Quartier, a building dating back to around 1880, originally constructed as a military fort and munitions depot, now a multipurpose facility reborn thanks to a restoration project funded with European funds in the 2000s.
INFO
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T. +39.366.8994697
@mo’delaine
