At the end of August 2026, Baci Sospesi arrived in Berlin for its first Sprouting Lab, an intensive three-day workshop developed on this occasion with my dear friend, the artivist Lorena Terzi (KulturNest).
I did not want the participants simply to reproduce the familiar red forms of the project. I wanted us to begin with what lies beneath them: the Baci Sospesi Manifesto, which brings together the project’s core values of empathy, courage, connection, hope and resistance. Through conversation, writing, linocut and a collective paste-up, those values became new images and words that first entered Berlin’s public space and then travelled beyond it. The prints have already reached Turkey, Italy and Poland, and more countries will soon receive them.
The workshop is over, but my conversation with Berlin is not. I would like to return with a temporary site-specific installation conceived during the workshop by the artist Lexie Yu (Chener). Together with Lexie and Lorena, I would like to explore what happens when people encounter Baci Sospesi unexpectedly in a public space. Do they stop? Do they recognise an invitation? How do they approach and interact with the work?
This next phase is a work in progress.