FROM THE HOME TO THE PLANET

Posted on by ecologni@gmail.com

FROM THE HOME TO THE PLANET. as Dialogue between Elena Cologni and Mother Art Collective

curated with Raffaella Perna 

MLAC Museum (Sapienza Universita’ di Roma) 8th October – 6 November 2025.

In collaboration with the Getty Research Institute (LA), the University of California Los Angeles Mathias Botanical Gardens, and the Cambridge School of Art (ARU)

“The exhibition arises from a dialogue between artist and researcher Elena Cologni and the artists of the California-based collective Mother Art Collective (MAC – Laura Silagi, Deborah Krall, and Suzanne Siegel) and from their shared focus on the concept of care, understood as an aesthetic, social, and political practice. The exhibition explores the connections between care experienced in the domestic sphere and care conceived as a public and ecological commitment. Through a selection of works from the 1970s to the present—installations, sculptures, videos, photographs, archival materials, and participatory practices developed specifically for this occasion —the exhibition questions the relationship between personal experience, motherhood, emotional relationships, and collective action, viewing care as a relational activity and a transformative action.
The exhibition project is part of the research ‘Towards a Feminist Care Aesthetics’ , for which Cologni was awarded a Getty Research Institute grant (2023), and a Quality Research and Innovation Fund and Impact grant, Faculty of Arts Humanities Education and Social Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University (ARU, 2024). The research is based on the analysis of the Mother Art Collective archives, on the study of their artistic history and on shared artistic and theoretical work, conducted between Europe and the United States.
Cologni and Mother Art Collective , with Dr Anthony Baniaga at the UCLA Mathias Botanical Gardens
images of the collaborative work From the Home to the Planet. Trajectories of migrations
Below are only a few images of the artworks in the exhibition
 
Mother Cleans the Banks series, 1978, Mother Art Collective

Laundry works series, Mother Art Collective, 1978, various places , Los Angeles (presented as a showreel in the show)
 
The Rainbow Playground, 1974, Mother Art Collective, The Woman Art Building Los Angeles
1985, Mother Art Collective (one of 4)
Seeds of Attachment (untiled, prop and collages), 2026/17, Elena Cologni, The Women’s Art Collection, University of Cambridge
Lo Scarto, 2015, Elena Cologni, based on Danilo Dolci maieutics, on loan from the Castelvetrano Council

 

The Body of/at Work, premiered at the Venice Biennale, 2021, Elena Cologni, dialogic sculptures at rest
Care notes, 2018, Elena Cologni, loan from Homerton College, University of Cambridge

 

On October 21, 2025, a study afternoon was dedicated to the exhibition’s themes, with the participation of Mother Art Collective and Elena Cologni.

💡 So many new research questions arose from getting to know that important time in history through Mother Art Collective’s practice, and through our shared approaches in artmaking. Experimenting with cocreation with them and contributions to our collaborative new work in the show. The potential of these ways of working to reach many more contexts and people and really impact the conversations and policies around planetary health .

In preparation to the show people were able to contribute to the following, which is ongoing:

From the Home to the Planet. Trajectories of migrations

Is a collaborative project developed by Mother Art Collective and Elena Cologni.  The work points to uncover how climate change deeply affects human and plant migration. This in turn alters local biosystems and impacts change in local climates around the world

Please continue to contribute by responding with your stories to these questions:

Do you have any personal stories about how climate change has affected you?
If you had to leave you home, what plant(s) would you take with you?

you add the stories

here

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image credits: Heteromeles arbutifolia (Lindl.) M. Romer. USA: California: Butte County: resprout from fire
39.61831°, -121.43952° Elevation: 417 meters
Occurrence remarks: roadside
TOYON OF THE CALIFORNIA CONSERVATION GENOMICS PROJECT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES (LA) ROSACEAE. UCLA Herbarium – LA LA00650144 Herbarium LA University of California Los Angeles.
Picture taken by Elena Cologni, 27 April 2025

     

 

press release_FROM THE HOME TO THE PLANET

Please find out more in the article Cologni, E. (2024). Mother(ings): From the home to the planet. A dialogue between Mother Art Collective and Elena Cologni. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 25(si1.6). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea25si1.6