The Madre, Donnaregina Museum of Contemporary Art in Naples is pleased to present the world premiere of Merging Bodies (2024), the new video work by Adrian Paci (born in Shkodër, Albania, in 1969; lives and works between Milan and Shkodër). The work will be screened at the Museum, and on November 8th, Sofër will be performed live, accompanied by a chamber composition by Admir Shkurtaj, the author of the video's soundtrack.

Angela Tecce, President of the Donnaregina Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and Eva Fabbris, Director of the Madre Museum, state:
"Madre is happy to host the world premiere presentation of Adrian Paci's work, an artist who has always deeply interpreted the relationship between human beings and matter. Thanks to an important private commission, his vocation as a storyteller is confronted with the theme of the factory, which Paci, in evocative moving images, combines with a humanistic approach to the representation of work. Merging Bodies thus authoritatively fits into the series of works produced by internationally relevant artists expressing aesthetic and political attention towards the Campania region."

The work is part of the Madre's path, always committed to supporting internationally relevant artistic projects, in dialogue with contemporary social and cultural reality, with a particular focus on the Campania region.

Commissioned on the occasion of the centenary of the Gruppo Laminazione Sottile, founded in Naples in 1923 by the Moschini family, Merging Bodies explores the connections between industry, work, and art. The work reimagines the factory not only as a place of production but as a space of transformation, where metal and those who work it reflect on themselves, suggesting new possibilities that go beyond the limits of the traditional industrial cycle.

At the core of Merging Bodies is a profound reflection on the relationship between man and his work environment. In this vision, the factory transforms into a living and complex body, where the boundaries between man and machine, between nature and artifice, become fluid. The human body and the industrial one intertwine in a continuous dialogue, creating a unique organism, essential for the realization of the work.