IED - The Distance We Carry
Fotografia: Ugnė Andriejunaite, Davide Consonni, Niccolò Gregorio, Chris Harman, Abby Hope, Ihor Kshyzhevskyi, Martina Macrì, Veronika Tykhomyrova, Fiorella Villagrán / Fanzines: Giorgia Ansaldi, Gece Hilal Başaran Ojalvo, Monica Canzio Baldassarre, Desirée Di Franco, Benedetta Monticelli, Martina Musumarra, Alessio Pepe, Francesco Praderio, Anna Regazzoni, Liepa Marija Sapetkaite
What does it mean to inhabit a space, a landscape, a body, or a memory? Far from being static, inhabiting is a dynamic negotiation between internal realities and external forces—architectures we build, natural environments we merge into, and social or economic structures shaping us. Through photography, sculpture, zines, installation, and video, nineteen IED Milan artists explore dwelling within flux, reclaiming agency in intimate and collective spaces.
To inhabit begins within the self, navigating expectations carved into our skin. In I’m Not A Mountain by Abby Hope, nature becomes a sanctuary for an artist with ADHD, where an outdoor installation reframes visibility into a courageous assertion of presence. This resistance to judgment is echoed in Fiorella Villagrán’s Volver, interrogating the female body beyond societal control.
Niccolò Gregorio’s Astro uses an astronaut suit within a deserted birthplace to alienate the landscape, showing how creativity forges new worlds out of solitude. Simultaneously, Chris Hartman’s Grain of the Machine approaches the city and photography as interconnected systems, blending analogue grain, pixels, frottages, and soundscapes to show how they echo each other through rhythm, distance, and shared patterns.
When structures dissolve, inhabiting turns into transition and survival. Martina Macrì’s Moving Out examines temporary dwelling through packaging materials, framing relocation as a way of living. This weight takes a human form in Free me – From (my) painful memories by Ihor Kshyzhevskyi, a multimedia performance centering Ukrainian women navigating war and migration, where collective gathering makes trauma bearable.
Finally, inhabiting requires engaging with temporal layers. Davide Consonni’s Time is a River explores family roots in the Po floodplain to show how landscapes preserve memory. In Unlearning, Ugnė Andriejunaite investigates inherited identity, asking if unlived trauma can be rewritten. In a critical turn, Veronika Tykhomyrova’s sculpture Egregore of Money depicts a yōkai born from financial obsession, confronting systems where money consumes human purpose.
In the middle room, ten fashion stylists have explored the topic ABITO through fanzine making.
Together, these works demonstrate that to inhabit is an act of survival, resistance, and creation—a process of meeting the world as you are and forging a home within constant change.
