Artist Residency Summer 2025
September with Donata Lazzarini
September brought a new chapter in the Vanessa Cardui artist residency program, a project that weaves together nature, art, and experimentation in a continuous dialogue with the Madonie landscape. At September, 2025, artist Donata Lazzarini stayed in the casina on our farm, turning her time here into a poetic encounter with a plant that has crossed the history of art for centuries: the acanthus.
The Acanthus:
the research of
Donata Lazzarini
“The acanthus is a plant widespread throughout the Mediterranean and also present in this countryside.
Together with Pippi we chose it because she loves its shape and its flowers, and I love it because it is a formal element that has always appeared in the history of art, from ancient classical times onward. Its forms have an unparalleled elegance.
At the beginning, the first thing I reflected on was that I didn’t want to use it in a decorative way, because its leaf is an extremely common pattern in the creation of fabrics, wallpapers, and more. Then, however, I found the solution by using study drawings taken from architectural models of various eras, which represented in a stylized way different types of acanthus leaves, from the most classical to the most naturalistic. This type of drawing was the most suitable for the technique I use—a modeling of honeycomb cardboard that I have been working with for quite some time—which I applied for the first time to a botanical theme I have been exploring for several years.”
– Donata Lazzarini
Sculptures as light as leaves
Inside the casina, Donata created four wall-mounted sculptures, small modeled reliefs that recall the lightness of acanthus leaves as they dry and become fragile. The honeycomb cardboard, with its natural color and vibrant texture, conveys both delicacy and resilience.
These works are not mere decorations: they are imaginary landscapes, suspended fragments that take us far across time and space, evoking Corinthian columns, ancient gardens, and the echoes of Mediterranean architecture that have made the acanthus a lasting symbol of elegance and rebirth.
A dialogue between botany and imagination
The residency The Acanthus of Vanessa Cardui reaffirms our farm’s role as a space for artistic experimentation. Here, among olive trees, wind, and silence, every plant becomes a source of research, every encounter a seed for the future.
Through her work, Donata Lazzarini reminds us that art can transform the simplest materials into visual narratives, opening our gaze to a Mediterranean world that continues to generate forms, stories, and wonder.