What Lies Behind the Boundaries of a Shadow? New opening exhibition by Barbara Prenka

What Lies Behind the Boundaries of a Shadow extends Barbara Prenka’s ongoing reflection on the blanket—an object that inhabits our daily lives and, in moments of crisis or social fragility, embodies care and shelter.
By recreating it from scratch—padding and hand-sewing shiny fabrics printed with abstract patterns—the artist turns the blanket into a terrain of imagination and material experiment. This artificial, abstract landscape unfolds as a plastic surface, where word and matter intertwine through embroidered texts.

Developed during her residency at Lottozero, the new series brings language into the work as a physical presence, inscribed in the fabric. Meaning, never linear nor fixed, settles within folds and reliefs, evoking inner images and subjective associations.

Emerging from a practice on the threshold between painting and sculpture, the blanket here shifts toward a sculptural dimension: the fold and the inertia of the padded fabric define new relations with space, architecture, and the identity of the site.
The exhibition takes form as a site-specific installation, activated by a sound composition by Alessandra Novaga, in which the blankets turn emptiness into a tangible presence. In this continuum, sound and silence, image and word merge until they coincide.

Barbara Prenka, a Kosovo-born artist active between Bolzano and Berlin, explores themes of identity—both individual and collective—and migration.
Her artistic research unfolds through installations and works that intertwine matter, memory, and gesture, investigating the relationship between care, transformation, and the stratification of time.

This project is the third chapter in Lottozero’s biennial program dedicated to Soft Sculpture, exploring the expressive and conceptual potential of soft and flexible materials within contemporary art.
The exhibition is co-funded by Toscanaincontemporanea 2025 and by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano–South Tyrol.

Opening: November 20, h 18.30
From 21.11.2025 to 15.02.2026
Mon-Fri 9.00-18.00; Sat and Sun by appointment
info@lottozero.org / Tel 0574 22883