The Art Studio

We Rise by Lifting Others is a site-specific exhibition by Marinella Senatore, conceived for La Casa di The Human Safety Net.

Open to the public from 7 May 2026 to 22 March 2027, it stems from the convergence of The Human Safety Net’s social mission and Marinella Senatore’s participatory artistic practice. Conceived as a collaborative work, We Rise by Lifting Others emerged from a co-creation process developed between December 2025 and January 2026 with three of The Human Safety Net’s partner NGOs, which placed families at risk of social exclusion—supported by The Human Safety Net through the For Families programme—at the centre of the project.

The project began in Warsaw with Ta Szansa (“This Opportunity”), continued in Mestre with the Casa Famiglia San Pio X, and concluded in Palermo with the Centro per la Salute delle Bambine e dei Bambini. Through writing, storytelling, physical movement and moments of sharing, the artist created a space for mutual listening and imagination together with parents and children. The words, thoughts and stories that emerged during these meetings became the living material from which the texts and visual elements of the works took shape.

At the heart of the exhibition is a light installation standing approximately four metres tall, which draws on the tradition of festive luminaria in Southern Italy and the scenographic elements of Baroque candelabra and ephemeral catafalques from the 17th and 18th centuries. The work represents a true relational architecture of light, capable of embracing and making visible collective voices, thoughts and experiences. In fact, the structure is interwoven with phrases and words created in workshops with families, alongside Baroque-inspired plant motifs that evoke growth, interdependence and care, whilst the presence of a fish at the top introduces a powerful metaphor of crossing, transformation and continuity.

Alongside the light installation, six tapestries created by the Chanakya School of Craft in Mumbai expand the exhibition’s narrative into a more intimate and story-driven dimension. Inspired by Baroque engravings, medieval miniatures and Japanese illustrations, the textiles construct symbolic landscapes inhabited by stylised human figures and embroidered texts: desires, plans, memories and reflections on personal and collective potential. Here too, the ‘I’ opens up to the ‘we’, and vulnerability translates into shared possibility. Image and word thus merge into an emotional and social cartography that captures the complexity of human relationships.

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