The MAN Art Museum of the Province of Nuoro welcomes from September 19 to November 2, 2025 the exhibition Ilaria Turba. The Breads of Desire, curated by Elisabetta Masala.
A gesture as ancient as it is universal - kneading and shaping bread - becomes matter of art and relationship in Ilaria Turba’s participatory project I pani del desiderio. In her breads, in fact, there are not only flour, water and yeast: also taking shape are dreams, memories and shared aspirations. The artist reinterprets the symbolic and communal value of Mediterranean ritual breads, transforming it into a creative and collective act, capable of generating listening and empathy.
The exhibition at MAN represents the final stage of a long journey between places, communities and desires. After years of encounters and exchanges, the artist returns the deep sense of ashared and transformative experience. The project began in 2018 in the northern neighborhoods of Marseille, during his collaboration with the national theater LE ZEF, where he activated participatory workshops that gave birth to more than one hundred bread-sculptures, each shaped from the participants’ desires. Since 2022, the project has become a journey through Italy: from Milan to Fontecchio, from Florence to Castiglione delle Stiviere, to the medieval village of Ghesc in Piedmont.
The last Italian stage takes place in Villaurbana, in the province of Oristano, as part of the AR/S - Arte Condivisa program promoted by the Fondazione di Sardegna. Here, a land closely linked to the tradition of ritual bread, the project finds its symbolic fulfillment: a return to the roots, to the material and gestures that unite. In the forest of S’Arangiu Aresti, during a collective feast, the stories of each bread were shared before being delivered to the fire in a ritual of transformation. As in archaic rituals, their metamorphosis does not mark an end, but a rebirth: the shiny black ash becomes a metaphor for the desires that, losing shape, merge together. “The vanishing forms remain in memory, in traces, in stories that can still be passed on. They have not disappeared, they have only returned to their essence, which is the same as the desires from which everything began,” the artist explains.
The exhibition The Loaves of Desire traces the entire itinerary, inviting the public to take a symbolic journey from Marseille to Sardinia. The works, many of them previously unseen, transform the museum into a space of relationship and care, a place where the simple and universal gesture becomes a tool for sharing and collective imagination.
The exhibition is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Mondays.
Visual artist Ilaria Turba develops interdisciplinary, participatory and relational projects involving communities, groups and territories, often in complex contexts. Her works arise from direct dialogue with people, welcoming voices, actions and stimuli from the participants, and take shape in installations, performances, works in public space, artist’s books and moments of collective celebration. A hallmark of his research is his constant relationship with public and private archives.
In 2020 he won the ninth Italian Council and has presented his work in international institutions and festivals, including: Mucem and LE ZEF in Marseille, Manifesta13, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Rencontres d’Arles, MAXXI L’Aquila, Festival Trajectoires in Nantes, Fondazione Prada, Castello di Rivoli, Brooklyn Children’s Museum in New York, Triennale Milano, Festival Animac in Catalunya, Museo Fotografia Contemporanea in Milan, Festival Filosofia in Modena, and Fotografia Europea in Reggio Emilia.
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| Shaping dreams: Ilaria Turba's bread and participatory art on display at MAN in Nuoro |
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