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The online solo exhibition, "Weaving the Axis — Blue / Ochre" by Italian artist Lisa Mara Batacchi, organized by DoBe Italy, the Sino Italian Design Exchange Center, Cross - Cultural Communication and Development Association (CCCDA), and supported by the Municipality of Florence, the Shanghai Promotion Center for City of Design, launched on June 12th, 2026, at 12:00 (Italian time).

 

 

 

For Lisa Batacchi, the choice of textiles as a medium represents the culmination of a long journey toward distilling a multilayered and relational practice, shaped by her travels to the East and the Middle East.

Comprising a series of three handwoven tapestries, Sand Storms in Medio Mundi (2021-2024) is a metaphorical image of an essentially earthly state, rendered precarious and fragile by the crises disrupting the current world, but charged with a tension of spiritual elevation. Rooted in a stratified process, the work draws from the historical and cultural exchanges along the Silk Road, translating these experiences into an ochre-dominated textile language that evokes sand, erosion, and transformation.

The project follows The Time of Discretion (2016–2021), a multi-year research that brought the artist into contact with an ethnic Miao community in southern China's Guizhou province, initiated on the occasion of her invitation to the 4th Land Art Mongolia Biennale, titled Finding the Axis between Sky and Earth. This led to the conception of Curtain (2016), a large indigo-dyed textile installation whose hybrid animal motif—part cow, part horse—draws on I Ching hexagrams to evoke a balance between creative and nurturing forces. Through a shared life experience with the women of the community, she became more deeply acquainted with their culture and traditions, learning the techniques of batik and indigo dyeing, as well as the value of discretion—an act of dedication without end, an expanded time that opens up spaces of freedom, collaboration, solidarity, and co-creation. Building on this encounter, she later wove Crossing Destinies (2018), a series of five jacquard tapestries produced with cotton threads dyed in indigo by the same Miao community. The works evoke the transformative moment of indigo dyeing, when a luminous blue foam forms on the surface of the vat—interpreted by the Miao women as a sign of ancestral protection, linked to the polar star.

If the blue of indigo guided her research, orienting it toward the element of the sky, in Sand Storms in Medio Mundi it is the ochre of raw silk, scattered like sand across every inch of fabric, that gives the element of earth body and materiality. Over the years of labor at the loom, this becomes a performative and contemplative act in which the prolonged time of discretion continues to lend depth and meaning to an artistic practice based on encounter and relationship—radical poetic gestures of the present.

Curatorial text by Alessandra Tempesti

 

 

 

Ph. Credits：Polimoda

Dubai Design Week, 2022

Installation view of Shamal. Sand Stone Stars, site specific installation for Design With Impact

 

Lacquered threads with a silk core, natural silks of various origins, ramie, steel structure (436 x 436 x 400 cm), sound installation Middle East Poems #1, #2, #3 by the pianist Stefano Maurizi.

 

 

Ph. Credits：Polimoda

 

Dubai Design Week 2022 Installation view of Shamal. Sand Stone Stars together with the tapestries from the series Sand Storms in Medio Mundi (Meditating on Earth) and (The World is so far Reversed).

 

 

Ph. Credits：Polimoda

 

Installation view of Shamal. Sand Stone Stars together with the tapestries from the series Sand Storms in Medio Mundi (Meditating on Earth) and (The World is so far Reversed), Dubai Design Week, 2022.

 

 

 

 

Ph. Credits：Rachele Salvioli

 

With the third tapestry of the series (The Spirit will Return to Us)

2024

 

Installation view Sand Storms in Medio Mundi I-III, Kunsthalle Lottozero, 2024

Tapestry, lacquered yarns with silk core, silks from various sources, ramie, raffia, 146 x 215 cm.

 

 

 

Ph. Credits：Lisa Mara Batacchi

 

The Time of Discretion

Installation view of The Time of Discretion. 

Curtain for LAM 360° Land Art Mongolia biennale, 2016

 

Wooden structure (500 x 270 cm), 6 motorcycle mirrors, cotton fabric, (500 x 370 cm), indigo, wax, 6 cotton and silk strings each of 300 cm long, 300 metal curtain hooks.

 

 

Ph. Credits：Lisa Mara Batacchi

 

Detail of The Time of Discretion. 

Curtain for LAM 360° Land Art Mongolia biennale, 2016

 

 

Ph. Credits：Lisa Mara Batacchi

 

 

Detail of The Time of Discretion

Curtain for LAM 360° Land Art Mongolia biennale, 2016

 

 

Ph. Credits：Designeast

 

Installation view of: Crossing Destinies

series of 5 tapestries, 60x62 cm each, cotton thread, natural indigo dye, 2018; 

The Time of Discretion (Film), color, sound, 25’’18’, 2021; 

The Time of Discretion (Book), published by Silvana Editoriale, 2020. 

(UN)COMMON THREADS, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai Art Week 2023. 

 

 

 

Ph. Credits： Designeast

 

Installation view of Crossing Destinies for (UN)COMMON THREADS

Dubai Art Week, Alserkal Avenue

2023

 

 

Ph. Credits：Lisa Mara Batacchi

 

Detail of Crossing Destinies

2018

 

series of 5 tapestries, each of 60x62 cm, cotton thread, natural Miao indigo dye from Guizhou Province, China. Manually woven by the artist on the Takemura loom during a residency at Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio in Florence Italy.

 

 

 

 

 

Lisa Mara Batacchi

Visual artist

 

 

Lisa Mara Batacchi (Florence, 1980) is an Italian-American visual artist whose practice develops through long-term projects in which textile research serves as a generative core. From this nucleus, works may expand into installations, film, drawing, or collective actions, forming interconnected constellations.

She studied Fashion Design at Polimoda and gained experience in high fashion, including work with Vivienne Westwood in London. She later pursued a degree in Visual Arts at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.

Since 2013, her artistic practice has evolved through travels, residencies, and collaborations with local communities across regions from South and Central Asia to the Middle East, where sustained engagement with textile and social traditions shapes a rigorously conceptual approach.

Devoted to hand weaving and the recovery of tapestry techniques—initially self-taught and later enriched through collaboration with master weavers and restorers—she reactivates archetypal forms, shifting them from historical belonging toward renewed universal significance.

A recurring vertical tension structures her work. Her tapestries function as woven thresholds: concentric symmetries and calibrated intersections articulate chromatic polarities and processes of internal transformation, evoking the axis mundi and inviting a corresponding shift in the viewer.

Working with natural dyes and organic elements through a slow, layered, and alchemical process, she approaches weaving as material transmutation. Threads are combined through numerological and symbolic structures, generating textile surfaces shaped by rhythm, sublimation, and the interplay of light.

Much of her research unfolds along the historical routes of the Silk Road and in regions of the Middle East, contexts long defined by connection and today marked by instability. Her works open spaces of continuity and resonance, suggesting the persistence of shared symbolic languages across cultural and political divides.

Shamal Sand Stone Stars, conceived for Dubai Design Week (2022), was featured as a must-see project in Vogue Arabia, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Arab News, Mille World, and Elle Decor.

Her multidisciplinary project The Time of Discretion, developed in collaboration with Miao women in Guizhou, China, explored natural indigo dyeing and its spiritual dimensions. The project resulted in Global Identities: Postcolonial and Cross-Cultural Narratives (Mousse Publishing, 2019), a monograph by Silvana Editoriale (2020), and an award-winning short film (2021).

Soulmates (Within Time) (2015), developed with the Banjara community in India, received the Movin’Up Award prize and was featured in Mumbai Mirror.

Her works have been exhibited internationally. Solo exhibitions include: Sand Storms in Medio Mundi I–III, Kunsthalle Lottozero, Prato (2024); Shamal Sand Stone Stars, Dubai Design Week (2022); Sand Storms in Medio Mundi, Merkantil Museum, BAW – Bolzano Art Week (2022); The Time of Discretion, MAD – Murate Art District, Florence (2018)Soulmates (Within Time), Clark House Initiative, Mumbai (2015).

Her works have also been presented in international biennials and group exhibitions, including: 10th Europe Asia Mediations Biennale Polska, Istanbul (2023); Un(common) Threads, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai Art Week (2023); Silk, GAD – Giudecca Art District, during the 59th Venice Biennale (2022); Manifesta 12, Palermo (2018); 2nd Something Else / Off Cairo Biennale (2018); Remembering the Future, Art & Globalization Pavilion during the 57th Venice Biennale; and the 4th LAM - Land Art Mongolia Biennale (2016)

 

 

 

Ph. Credits：Rachele Salvioli

 

With the third tapestry of the series (The Spirit will Return to Us)

2024

 

Installation view Sand Storms in Medio Mundi I-III, Kunsthalle Lottozero, 2024

Tapestry, lacquered yarns with silk core, silks from various sources, ramie, raffia, 146 x 215 cm.

 

 

Ph. Credits：Lisa Mara Batacchi

 

The Time of Discretion

Installation view of The Time of Discretion. 

Curtain for LAM 360° Land Art Mongolia biennale, 2016

 

Wooden structure (500 x 270 cm), 6 motorcycle mirrors, cotton fabric, (500 x 370 cm), indigo, wax, 6 cotton and silk strings each of 300 cm long, 300 metal curtain hooks.

 

 

Ph. Credits：Lisa Mara Batacchi

 

Detail of The Time of Discretion. 

Curtain for LAM 360° Land Art Mongolia biennale, 2016

 

 

Ph. Credits：Lisa Mara Batacchi

 

 

Detail of The Time of Discretion

Curtain for LAM 360° Land Art Mongolia biennale, 2016

 

 

Ph. Credits：Designeast

 

Installation view of: Crossing Destinies

series of 5 tapestries, 60x62 cm each, cotton thread, natural indigo dye, 2018; 

The Time of Discretion (Film), color, sound, 25’’18’, 2021; 

The Time of Discretion (Book), published by Silvana Editoriale, 2020. 

(UN)COMMON THREADS, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai Art Week 2023. 

 

 

 

Ph. Credits： Designeast

 

Installation view of Crossing Destinies for (UN)COMMON THREADS

Dubai Art Week, Alserkal Avenue

2023

 

 

Ph. Credits：Lisa Mara Batacchi

 

Detail of Crossing Destinies

2018

 

series of 5 tapestries, each of 60x62 cm, cotton thread, natural Miao indigo dye from Guizhou Province, China. Manually woven by the artist on the Takemura loom during a residency at Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio in Florence Italy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lisa Mara Batacchi

Visual artist

 

 

Lisa Mara Batacchi (Florence, 1980) is an Italian-American visual artist whose practice develops through long-term projects in which textile research serves as a generative core. From this nucleus, works may expand into installations, film, drawing, or collective actions, forming interconnected constellations.

She studied Fashion Design at Polimoda and gained experience in high fashion, including work with Vivienne Westwood in London. She later pursued a degree in Visual Arts at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.

Since 2013, her artistic practice has evolved through travels, residencies, and collaborations with local communities across regions from South and Central Asia to the Middle East, where sustained engagement with textile and social traditions shapes a rigorously conceptual approach.

Devoted to hand weaving and the recovery of tapestry techniques—initially self-taught and later enriched through collaboration with master weavers and restorers—she reactivates archetypal forms, shifting them from historical belonging toward renewed universal significance.

A recurring vertical tension structures her work. Her tapestries function as woven thresholds: concentric symmetries and calibrated intersections articulate chromatic polarities and processes of internal transformation, evoking the axis mundi and inviting a corresponding shift in the viewer.

Working with natural dyes and organic elements through a slow, layered, and alchemical process, she approaches weaving as material transmutation. Threads are combined through numerological and symbolic structures, generating textile surfaces shaped by rhythm, sublimation, and the interplay of light.

Much of her research unfolds along the historical routes of the Silk Road and in regions of the Middle East, contexts long defined by connection and today marked by instability. Her works open spaces of continuity and resonance, suggesting the persistence of shared symbolic languages across cultural and political divides.

Shamal Sand Stone Stars, conceived for Dubai Design Week (2022), was featured as a must-see project in Vogue Arabia, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Arab News, Mille World, and Elle Decor.

Her multidisciplinary project The Time of Discretion, developed in collaboration with Miao women in Guizhou, China, explored natural indigo dyeing and its spiritual dimensions. The project resulted in Global Identities: Postcolonial and Cross-Cultural Narratives (Mousse Publishing, 2019), a monograph by Silvana Editoriale (2020), and an award-winning short film (2021).

Soulmates (Within Time) (2015), developed with the Banjara community in India, received the Movin’Up Award prize and was featured in Mumbai Mirror.

Her works have been exhibited internationally. Solo exhibitions include: Sand Storms in Medio Mundi I–III, Kunsthalle Lottozero, Prato (2024); Shamal Sand Stone Stars, Dubai Design Week (2022); Sand Storms in Medio Mundi, Merkantil Museum, BAW – Bolzano Art Week (2022); The Time of Discretion, MAD – Murate Art District, Florence (2018)Soulmates (Within Time), Clark House Initiative, Mumbai (2015).

Her works have also been presented in international biennials and group exhibitions, including: 10th Europe Asia Mediations Biennale Polska, Istanbul (2023); Un(common) Threads, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai Art Week (2023); Silk, GAD – Giudecca Art District, during the 59th Venice Biennale (2022); Manifesta 12, Palermo (2018); 2nd Something Else / Off Cairo Biennale (2018); Remembering the Future, Art & Globalization Pavilion during the 57th Venice Biennale; and the 4th LAM - Land Art Mongolia Biennale (2016)