The Curators’ Quaderno - 13 Artists at Museo Sant’Orsola

the

curators’

quaderno

NOW OR NEVER

Thirteen Artists at Museo Sant’Orsola

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the

curators’

quaderno

‘NOW OR NEVER’

Thirteen Artists at Museo Sant’Orsola

Published for the exhibition ‘The Rose that Grew from

Concrete’ at Museo Sant’Orsola (5 September 2025 – 4 January

2026), curated by Morgane Lucquet Laforgue and organised by

the museum, with founding partner Artea Groupe, and special

thanks to the venue’s first donors Calliope Arts Foundation.

colophon

This exhibition is also made possible thanks to the Città

metropolitana di Firenze and the support of Fondazione Nuovi

Mecenati, a Franco-Italian foundation for contemporary

creativity, with the support of the Tuscan Region –‘Toscana in

contemporanea’.

Publication sponsor: Christian Levett, FAMM

Photography: Claudio Ripalti, Marco Badiani

Complete photo credits: pp. 31 and 32

Publisher: The Florentine Press

tcq series editor: Linda Falcone

Book design: Marco Badiani

Book layout: Leo Cardini

Printer: Cartografica Toscana

ISBN Code: 978-88-97696-39-1

2025 B’Gruppo Srl, Prato

First edition: September 2025

Series: The Curators’ Quaderno

© Calliope Arts Foundation

All rights reserved

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Printed in Florence, Italy

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“We are in a transitional moment, in the

creation of the museum. For the thirteen

artists participating in this show, ‘The

Rose that Grew from Concrete’, it is ‘now

or never’, in the sense that they have

embraced the opportunity to interact with

the space as a construction site, and in a

way that will never be possible again, even

after it is renovated. Consider that we are

creating a museum, with no real collection

in hand. All we have is the void of what has

been dispersed, lost, and forgotten in the

annals of the complex’s history. The people

who lived here thirty, fifty, five hundred

years ago, are gone. We are re-creating the

memory of the place, thanks to an artistic

gaze, and through contemporary art. The

artists are not looking at one specific

moment in the history of the place, rather,

they are spanning several centuries. There

are thirteen visions, on top of my own,

but Sant’Orsola is, for everyone, the main

protagonist.”

Morgane Lucquet Laforgue

Curator, Museo Sant’Orsola

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Curator Morgane Lucquet Laforgue at

work with artist Clara Rivault, at the

Vetreria Polloni Laboratory in Florence

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“Once called the poor man’s Bible, stained glass was originally used

to depict sacred or everyday narratives for those who could not read.

Today, I repurpose its codes to illuminate personal stories — intimate,

often quiet — interwoven with universal myths and with narratives

rooted in the places where each work is created. The stained glass

becomes a painting, a window, a living skin. It transforms with

the light — with the sun, with time, with shadow. It captures the

invisible. It breathes. Here, it wasn’t just an archaeological site. It

was a tomb. A presence. That of Lisa Gherardini. It required me to

shift perspective — quite literally: this stained glass is not seen from

below, as tradition dictates, but from above. It brings us back to the

ground. It speaks of horizontality, of humility, of humanity.

La Naissance de Lisa, – the birth of Lisa, is a tribute to women – to

their strength, their struggles, their collective power. In this work,

Lisa becomes a hybrid figure, a chimera, a soul-memory. Through

her layers, her scars, her superimposed skins, she embodies the

lingering spirit of a place marked by suffering – and rebirth.”

Clara Rivault

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“Working with fire-based techniques, glass and

ceramics means confronting transforming materials

– wild and unpredictable. It immerses me in their

fragility and randomness, allowing me to embrace risk

and the joy of surprise. For Sant’Orsola, I conceived an

installation inspired by its archaeological excavations,

aiming to make the unearthed elements sensorially

visible. I created suspended glass sculptures in colour,

representing the ‘crystallized souls’ of exhumed

objects and bodies. The colours act as a code, linked to

original materials – copper, bone, glass – incorporated

as powder into molten glass. Each piece presents a

new challenge, both in scale and as a site-specific

installation. I sought to express a suspended memory –

a connection between disappearance, transformation

and the persistence of surrounding traces.”

Marion Flament

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“My creative process happens in two

parts. I paint on fabric and then cut the

painting into strips, which are then used

to make my panels, using a double-warp

technique. So, I create a painting and

then decompose it, before ‘building’ it

again on the loom. My goal is to explore

the connection between nature and

architecture, by depicting vegetation

grown at Sant’Orsola, like edible and

medicinal plants or even weeds. I also

aim to explore the connection between

architecture and textiles, two words

with the same origins, ‘tek’ [to weave or

construct]. My landscape works are not

for viewing, they are meant for entry – in a

space full of weaving and transparencies,

an open window onto the world.”

Elise Peroi

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“I started painting on canvas and found it annoying

to try to fit everything inside a frame. With canvas,

you have to carry it. Wall painting is liberating,

and it’s a light practice. There is no object to take

home at the end of it. I feel that I have too many

possessions; so, I come, I do something and I go. It’s

just a bit of light on the wall.”

Flora Moscovici

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“People tell me, ‘You do

really big paintings, but

you are so small!

’I command painting.”

Flora Moscovici

“I decided to paint traces of colour already present

in different parts of Sant’Orsola, from objects

that are not high-status: a fresco fragment, a

twentieth-century work of restoration painted

by a refugee who once lived here, the blue and

green of an angel’s wing, parts of the vault that no

longer look like a work of art. I wanted to capture

the fragments of this place, with no sense of

hierarchy as to what is worthy and what is not –

wherever there was colour. Through art, I strive

to unify separate parts. Although my painting is

not a landscape and you don’t have to look for

woods and sky, it can still be seen as an abstract

landscape because it refers to the light in this

space, and how it is constantly moving. The light

becomes the painting.”

Flora Moscovici

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“I work in one go, with fresh paint that is never

quite dry. In scagliola, there is no room for ‘the

accidental’, which so often characterises my own

painting. But it does have an element of trompel’oeil,

which is relevant to my work with illusions,

and the kitsch aspect in my paintings. I look at my

subject and see things from above, which tends to

make objects more abstract, because it distances

you from them, which doesn’t happen when

working vertically, with a painting propped on an

easel. Artisans at the Bianco Bianchi studio and I

share the perspective of our vantage point.”

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Mireille Blanc

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“Collaboration between artist and artisan has always

existed throughout history, and the likes of Leonardo

and Michelangelo worked with artisans in many of

their pursuits. In centuries past, the relationship was

one of subjection, where the artisan simply submitted

to the will of the artist-genius. Today, we’ve achieved

independence – the clearance, so to speak – to work

with artists in dialogue, not in submission or even

competition. The textures achieved with scagliola are

different than those produced by the stroke of a brush.

We use incision, sanding, smoothing and polishing – and

most of all, patience, to produce a work. Mireille Blanc

and Museo Sant’Orsola brought the atelier a ‘challenge’

to face up to contemporary languages, using an age-old

technique.”

Alesandro and Leonardo Bianchi

Laboratorio Bianco Bianchi

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“My Sant’Orsola work is called ‘Come afferrare il

vento’ – how to grasp the wind. It is a timeless

moment frozen in time; but even though it is

frozen, it keeps moving. Its leaves, made with

shellac and glue, will undergo the oxidation

process, humans will impact it – a visitor may

pass by the work and cause a ‘breeze’ with their

movement. Exposure to lighting and the elements,

especially in this unfinished museum, will impact

the work. So, I start a process as an artist, and

know that I will never see its end. My artworks

use botanical elements to explore the multidimensionality

of time, because plants have a

unique relationship with it, which is not purely

symbolic, rather it has to do with physicality and

religion – both physics and beliefs.”

Federico Gori

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“Embroidery is a medium traditionally associated with

women, but historically, artistic creation has largely

been the domain of men. My aim is to move this craft

beyond its conventional links to delicate embroidery

or domestic decor, and to redefine it as a powerful

form of artistic expression. To be part of this change

is incredible, as I help shift embroidery’s standing, by

positioning it as a medium capable of creating works

of art, not craftsmanship. What rings true for any work

of art applies to embroidery as well: you have to ask

yourself what you are trying to provoke and express.

The artisanal nature of needlework is changing. There

are so many textile arts. It is about what you want the

viewer to feel or to react to, because art is not just

about technique, it’s about intention.”

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Cécile Davidovici

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“This once-secret, sacred place,

now paved in concrete and

overtaken by plants, inspired our

reflection on the coexistence of

the organic and the technological,

the natural and the artificial, the

material and the symbolic.”

Cécile Davidovici

and David Ctiborsky

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“I am interested in memory, identity

and the temporal stratification

of a place, its architecture and

landscape. My work at Sant’Orsola

consists in building pillars or

column-sculptures inside the

ancient apothecary.”

Chiara Bettazzi

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“When I go to a venue to work, I bring the contents

of my studio with me; that is my ‘archive’, which I

compose in different ways, and then disassemble

once the exhibition is over, as a form of detachment.

I come from a family of compulsive and serial

hoarders. My columns can be built from any element

of my collection. I have vintage books and dried

roots, stones and old leathers. I have false teeth,

old mattresses, furniture that has been through a

fire, bones, heirlooms, lace and chipped tableware,

a fake hand, a dried toad, old umbrellas, fans, plates

and the contents of my mother’s drawer. When

something breaks in my constant moving from

studio to venue, I used to get upset, now I say, ‘Oh,

there’s something new for the archive!’”

Chiara Bettazzi

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“So many buildings become derelict, or

are being repurposed, so my question

became: If the material or physical world

keeps changing, what lives on in a place?

I use gold as a way of highlighting that

spirit – the spirit in the inanimate.”

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Shubha Taparia

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“If the walls of Sant’Orsola could talk, they would tell

the stories of countless souls who lived or worked

or sought refuge within them. From the fifteenth

century, beneath the vaulted ceilings of the chapel,

Benedictine and Franciscan nuns followed their daily

rituals of meditation and prayer. In the cloister, their

sisters tended plants for use in herbal remedies,

following closely guarded recipes. What sorrows and

joys did these women share? In 1818, the convent was

repurposed as a tobacco factory, staffed mainly by

women. We can imagine their noisy camaraderie and

the echo of their feet, pounding down the stairs at the

end of a shift, escaping the drudgery of their work.

In the years following the Second World War, the

complex became a centre for refugees. Did they find

comfort at Sant’Orsola? A later plan to convert the

building into a barracks for the Guardia di Finanza was

abandoned, but not before the ancient walls had been

covered with concrete, erasing the remnants left by

its previous inhabitants. Their stories may have been

lost, but the memory of their occupation is being

revived by the artists in this exhibition. The marks

they leave on these walls will do the talking for them.”

Margie MacKinnon

Co-founder, Calliope Arts Foundation

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“At a certain point of distillation, art

becomes universal across cultures. I feel

like there are lots of things that divide

us – we continuously talk about how

we are different, but we do need some

people who show the unifying factors in

human beings, and that is the hope for

peace. Gold is something that everyone

understands and has for millennia. In

every culture, gold is seen as a symbol of

regeneration, enlightenment, the light

of God, or wisdom, so it’s a very special

material that never tarnishes and, in that

sense, there is an eternal quality to it.”

Shubha Taparia

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“One of my Sant’Orsola works is made

from a roof tile found there. It’s gritty

and trapezoidal in shape, which refers

to the venue as an excavation site,

exploring issues like growth, decay and

transformation. Its figure is from a fresco

by Benozzo Gozzoli, whose painting of

Saint Ursula is now in Washington [at the

National Gallery of Art].”

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Chris Oh

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“I am going to paint the Mona Lisa. It’s hard to

find a circumstance in which an artist would

do something like that, or even be able to

rationalise something so corny! But she was

buried at Sant’Orsola, and I’ll be painting her

image inside an amethyst – and my intention is

that this crystal will become a relic-of-sorts, a

sacred object, with translucent spiritual light

and underworld symbolism.”

Chris Oh

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“I originally studied painting, but my work with clay and ceramics

developed later, entirely on my own, without formal training. This

self-taught approach has deeply influenced the character of my

ceramic work: at times, it may appear deliberately ‘un-ceramic’, in

the sense that it doesn’t strive for technical perfection or industrial

polish. I actually cherish the handmade, the irregular, the imperfect

– the traces of process and touch – much like what we find in folk

art. There’s a rawness and sincerity to that, and I love working with

shards; they carry a tension. For Museo Sant’Orsola, I’ve created

two floor-based installations, inspired by Della Robbia ceramic

medallions that once hung under the domes of the monastery’s

inner church, depicting Saint Ursula and Saint Francis of Assisi. Yet,

instead of showing the saints in the traditional sense, I imagined

Ursula and Francis as they might appear today, as young adults,

reimagined in my own visual language.”

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Beate Höing

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“It is so rare to be able to install a work and then to

leave it sleeping for months, until it is finally shown

to the public, and for an artist like myself who

works with sensitive materials – liquids, salt-based

chemicals and more – there is always a component

of transformation that happens within the materials

I’m using in these installations. Typically, when I

am opening a show, things start as liquid and one

colour, and throughout the show different colours

emerge, things crystalise, solidify and evaporate.

Many people see the show when an artwork is new,

at its birth. In this case, at Museo Sant’Orsola, the

public has the rare opportunity to encounter my

work, in its maturation stage.”

Bianca Bondi

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photo credits

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Unless otherwise noted, all

photographs published in this

edition of tcq were taken at Museo

Sant’Orsola in Florence, from April to

July 2025

Photos by Claudio Ripalti:

Cover photo: Elise Peroi, Vestiges de

plantes absente, installation, painting

on linen and silk

P. 2-3: Elise Peroi working on her

piece in the former infirmary of

Sant’Orsola’s convent

P. 7: Clara Rivault at the Vetreria

Polloni with La Naissance de Lisa, in

progress

P. 8-9: Marion Flament during the

installation of Les âmes de Sant’Orsola

and Le retable évaporé, at the

archaeological site, in the fourteenthcentury

church

P. 12-13: Flora Moscovici at work on

Polvere e cielo

Pp. 14-15: Flora Moscovici, Polvere

e cielo, temporary work in the

loggiato, lime-based painting using an

agricultural sprayer

Pp. 16-17: Mireille Blanc during an

interview, Calliope Arts co-founder

Margie MacKinnon and Sant’Orsola’s

staff Alice Palmerini and Maria Camilla

Palleschi are pictured with the artist

Mirelle Blanc in her studio; Artisan

Alessandro Bianchi creating

a scagliola work in conversation with

Mireille Blanc’s art at Laboratorio

Bianco Bianchi; Blanc with artisans

Alessandro and Leonardo Bianchi at

their atelier

Pp. 18-19: Federico Gori, Come

afferrare il vento, installation in copper,

nylon thread, lead, sand, iron; Federico

Gori with Come afferrare il vento

P. 20-21: Davidovici and Ctiborsky,

Fenêtre perpétuelle, detail,

embroidery on organza, 303 x 187

cm;Cécile Davidovici hanging La

fenêtre perpetuelle in the ancient

fourteenth-century church

P. 24: Shubha Taparia at work, goldleaf

installation Continuum; Shubha

Taparia working on Gold ground

P. 26-27: Shubha Taparia working on

Continuum in the vaulted museum

entrance

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What is tcq?

The Curators’ Quaderno is a

collection of notebook-style

publications, conceived

by the Calliope Arts

Foundation, in collaboration

with The Florentine Press,

to raise awareness of

women’s contributions to

the fields of art, science

and culture.

P. 28-29: Chris Oh, Fragment in

progress, from a roof tile found at the

Sant’Orsola construction site; Chris

Oh beside his station, in the process

of creating his work for the exhibition

P. 30-31: Beate Höing with her work

Ursula; Beate Höing, Ursula, detail,

glazed ceramic, porcelain, Ø 143 cm

P. 33: (upper right): Bianca Bondi,

detail, working with salt for Sotto sale

Photos by Marco Badiani:

P. 4-5: Sant’Orsola, the cloister as it

will never be seen again

P. 10-11: Elise Peroi sharing several

phases of her artistic process

P. 32: Sotto sale, installation by

Bianca Bondi, composed of copper

and brass containers, stabilised

vegetation, salt, saline liquids and

antique fabrics

P. 33 (upper left): Bianca Bondi

creating Sotto Sale

We extend our gratitude to all of this

project’s ‘curators’, including artists,

art administrators, project donors

and the museum executives and staff

featured herein, or present behind the

scenes: Morgane Lucquet Laforgue,

Margie MacKinnon, Wayne McArdle,

Chiara Bettazzi, Alessandro Bianchi,

Leonardo Bianchi, Mireille Blanc, Bianca

Bondi, David Ctiborsky, Marion Flament,

Federico Gori, Beate Höing, Flora

Moscovici, Chris Oh, Elise Peroi, Clara

Rivault, Vetreria Polloni and Calliope Arts

Foundation awardees Shubha Taparia

and Cécile Davidovici.

With special thanks to donor Christian

Levett, founder of the Levett Collection

in Florence and FAMM in Mougins, for his

support of this edition of The Curators’

Quaderno.

Heartfelt gratitude also goes to those

responsible for producing and promoting

this publication including Linda Falcone,

Marco Badiani, Leo Cardini, Giovanni

Giusti, Deborah Bettazzi, Claudio Ripalti,

Giacomo Badiani, Helen Farrell, Alice

Palmerini and Maria Camilla Palleschi.

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