Madri in Corpo

Launched in 2023-2024, MADRI is a project of innovative pedagogical research and action conceived under the scientific care of Maria D’Ambrosio, professor and founder of the embodied education group at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University, and the coordination of Gennaro De Fabbio, pedagogue of the embodied education group.

Through a series of weekly workshops held from February to May 2025, MADRI brought together a group of mothers and their children, kindergarteners at Istituto Comprensivo ‘Confalonieri-Ristori’ in Naples, to guide them through paths exploring sentimental relationships.

The work views the maternal body as the first affective space where we learn to weave relationships and ‘inhabit’ the world. Mothers and children, with the support of educators, practiced a ‘sensitive’ pedagogy and aesthetic education aimed at growing and nurturing sensitivity, awareness, understanding and openness to different forms of listening and dialogue.

The workshop meetings were held alternating between the classrooms of the ‘Confalonieri-Ristori’ school – thanks to the invaluable collaboration of teacher Mena Palma, deputy headmistress Marcella Pagano and headmistress Tiziana D’Isanto – and the spaces of Fondazione Morra Greco, a fundamental territorial partner in the execution of the project, with the support of Francesca Blandino (head of educational services), Francesca Cocco (consultant for external projects) and Alessia Pellecchia (educator at Fondazione Morra Greco).

As a culmination of the project, Fondazione Morra Greco is elated to host the exhibition MADRI IN CORPO. Pedagogical poetics for a sentimental education and a rebirth of making encounter – to retrace the relational and transformative paths walked by the mothers and their children, who enjoyed the constant mediation of dance trainer Lidia Marinaro and Gennaro De Fabbio. Included in the exhibition are works co-created by the moms and their children – 7 works on canvas, using wool yarn and pastels – as well as video and photographic documentation made by Francesca Blandino and Alessia Pellecchia.

MADRI IN CORPO is an exhibition that opens itself to the city to share the moments experienced by the singularities with a broader public. The outcomes of the interventions, other than assessing the social value produced and the structured phases of the process, aim to fuel a new, possible proposal merging Art and Education – which in itself offers an example and sets the scene for a different quality of living.

The exhibition will be open until June 21, 2025.

The project is co-financed with funds derived from Piano Strategico Cultura e Turismo 2024/2025 –
Progetto Global Forum Mostre d’arte contemporanea EDI 2025.