Soperchi Ornamenti

From 20 February to 30 April 2026, SCD Studio presents SOPERCHI ORNAMENTI, an exhibition curated by Barbara Pavan and hosted at via Bramante 22N, within the MAD Monteluce Art District in Perugia IT.

The exhibition brings together artworks by Elham M. Aghili, Jorgelina Alessandrelli, Susanna Cati, Rosita D’Agrosa, Patrizia Benedetta Fratus, Florencia Martinez, Laura Mega, Lucia Bubilda Nanni and Olga Teksheva, outlining a research-driven curatorial path situated within contemporary art practices related to textile-based media.

Included in the programme of W.A.U.! - Weekend delle Arti Unite, promoted by the Municipality of Perugia, the project opens with a preview on Friday 20 February at 5 pm, followed by the official opening on Saturday 21 February at 4 pm and a special opening on Sunday 22 February.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Al3vie Editore.

SOPERCHI ORNAMENTI investigates the head covering as a symbolic, political and poetic device, tracing its meanings across centuries of cultural history and offering a contemporary reinterpretation through the language of art. The project takes its point of departure from the Pauline injunction regarding the covering of women’s heads- a foundational ideological element in a long-standing tradition of subordination and control over women’s bodiesin - order to subvert its meaning and transform a sign of submission into a space of affirmation, imagination and freedom.

Nine artists, active on both the national and international scene, give form to a sequence of soft sculptures conceived as headpieces, placing textile practices historically regarded as “minor” because associated with femininity in dialogue with an aesthetic and conceptual inquiry that extends beyond any predefined identity-based or disciplinary boundaries. Here, textile becomes a language capable of expressing that distinctive quality of female ingenuity which, within the constraints imposed by patriarchal history, has been able to transform limitation into possibility and borders into generative spaces. The exhibition rereads the accessory as an emblematic element of a female creativity capable of generating alternative worlds within circumscribed spaces. SOPERCHI ORNAMENTI draws on a stratified memory that intertwines art, history and current events, moving from medieval practices - when, between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, women’s covered heads became sites of display and agency, to the point of being censured as “excessive ornaments” - through the centuries to the white headscarf of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, a symbol of resistance and justice, and arriving at the recent protests by Iranian women, who transformed the act of removing the veil into a revolutionary gesture. Within this historical and symbolic continuum, the headpiece emerges as both artwork and political statement in the broadest and most profound sense: an affirmation of individual uniqueness, a vehicle for ideas, and an instrument of emancipation. SOPERCHI ORNAMENTI proposes an abundant, hybrid and destabilising imaginary, capable of dismantling preconceptions and leading viewers into a space in which predefined roles dissolve and new possible realities take shape. The project celebrates the female gaze as a transformative force, capable of acting upon the present and imagining alternative futures.

The exhibition finds a particularly meaningful context in the territory of Perugia, owing to the city’s deep historical stratification and its ability to sustain a dialogue between tradition and contemporaneity. This environment proves fertile ground for a critical reflection on the cultural and social dynamics shaping female experience, also in light of a recent history marked by emblematic figures such as Luisa Spagnoli, whose entrepreneurial, social and symbolic legacy embodies a model of transformation capable of combining innovation, collective responsibility and strong local roots. Within this framework, the project coherently aligns with the path initiated by SCD Studio through CASSANDRE, a platform dedicated to contemporary art as a space for investigating the structures of power systems.

CASSANDRE is an artistic and curatorial project conceived as a container and critical laboratory which, inspired by the mythological figure of Cassandra - an emblem of lucid truth systematically ignored - explores mechanisms of exclusion, delegitimisation and silencing enacted by patriarchal, institutional and cultural systems of power. Through events, works and interventions that reinterpret practices historically associated with women’s “making” in conceptual and experimental ways, integrating them with contemporary languages and advanced technologies, the project restores visibility and agency to marginalised voices while reflecting on the female condition as a space of resistance, self-determination and conflict. The initiatives developed within this framework investigate the multiple forms of oppression and discrimination still operating in contemporary society, exposing their structural nature and inviting viewers to a critical awareness of present-day contradictions and the possibility of imagining future transformations.


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