RADICAL SHE — WOMEN QUADRENNIAL OF ART AND SOCIETY 2026

A new grammar of power

8 SICILIAN LOCATIONS · 6 MONTHS · ART, SOCIETY AND RADICAL CHANGE

In 2026, FARM presented the second edition of Radical SHE – Women Quadrennial of Art and Society, a six-month international programme that transformed FARM venues and partner locations across Sicily into a widespread laboratory of art, thought and social change.

At a time when women’s bodies, freedoms and voices were once again under pressure, artists, filmmakers, performers and cultural practitioners challenged inherited narratives of power and imagined new forms of care, resistance and collective life.

Radical SHE was not simply an exhibition. It was a new grammar of power.

6 MONTHS · 8 SICILIAN LOCATIONS · 50+ ARTISTS AND CULTURAL PRACTITIONERS · 18 PROJECTS

WHAT

In 2026, FARM hosted the second edition of Radical SHE – Women Quadrennial of Art and Society, an international event that transformed all FARM venues and partner locations across Sicily into a widespread laboratory of art, thought and social change.

Bodies, Identities & Intimacies

The body as a space of struggle and freedom; plural identities and intimate experiences as forms of political resistance.

Power, Leadership & Economies of Care

Care as a transformative force capable of reshaping leadership, education and collective responsibility.

Feminisms: Digital & Ecological Revolutions

Feminist perspectives on technology and ecology as tools for imagining fairer, more sustainable and inclusive futures.

RADICAL SHE 2026 — LOCATIONS

AGRIGENTO · BUTERA · FAVARA · GELA · MAZZARINO · PALERMO · SANT’ANGELO MUXARO · VIZZINI

From former prisons and abandoned factories to museums, cultural centres and rural landscapes, Radical SHE unfolded across Sicily, connecting artistic practices, communities and territories.

AGRIGENTO EX CARCERE SAN VITO

Rikers Island

CLARA VANNUCCI

Clara Vannucci documented life inside Rikers Island prison, focusing on personal stories of incarceration, family bonds, and community resilience, revealing hidden human experiences behind mass incarceration.

EGLĖ NARBUTAITĖ

Breaking Free

Mural by Lithuanian artist Eglė Narbutaitė, created during her artist residency at Farm Cultural Park in the former San Vito Prison in Agrigento, curated by Joaquín Mora.“My mural, Breaking Free, portrays a woman forcefully shattering an hourglass, a symbol of breaking free from social pressures and the limiting notion of an imagined ‘expiration date’ imposed on women. The work envisions a future in which women are no longer constrained by time, inviting reflection on the sustainability and inclusivity of identity, both on a personal and collective level.”

MOTHER // EVERYDAY DYNAMICS

SILVIA LIBERA FORESE

MOTHER // EVERYDAY DYNAMICS by Silvia Libera Forese explores one of the most complex and often invisible identities in contemporary society: that of the artist-mother. Drawing on her personal experience, the artist transforms motherhood from a perceived limitation into a powerful creative force, questioning deeply rooted social expectations, stereotypes and cultural models.

GIORGIO VELLA

Archeologia di una Religione

Archaeology of a Religion is Giorgio Vella’s photographic investigation into the cultural encounter between Catholic tradition and pagan ritual. In this chapter, centred on clothing, the artist uses design and photography to explore the close relationship between liturgical vestments and the traditional attire of Southern Italian rural communities, seen as one of the last modern expressions of a form of Christianity still deeply intertwined with pagan traditions.

ALICE CHISARI, ARIANNA LI VOLSI, CAWA & SON AND SERENA ETIOPIA. LIVE MUSIC PERFORMANCE DI KIRØ

Padiglione Etere

Etere Pavilion — Collective Exhibition featuring works by Alice Chisari, Arianna Li Volsi, Cawa & Son and Serena Etiopia, with a live music performance by Kirø. An independent, self-produced project curated by Yard44 in collaboration with Rudere Project, as part of the OltreCapitale circuit.

BUTERA IL GIARDINO DELLE BELLE

Donne di Sicilia oltre gli stereotipi

Radical SHE 2026 stopped in Butera for an unforgettable evening at Il Giardino delle Belle. Under the full moon, extraordinary Sicilian women shared stories of cultural and social activism that challenged stereotypes and inspired new generations. Sculpture, theatre, poetry, dance, jazz and live music came together in a powerful celebration of women, creativity and collective transformation.

TERESA NOCERA · ANTONELLA CIRRITO · GIULIANA BALDI · TIZIANA FRANCO · GIANCARLO BELLA · FRANCESCA PIZZO SCUTO · MARIANA CERINO CALAZANS · ARABELLA RUSTICO · ESTER CARDELLA · LUCREZIA · SIMONA MALANDRINO

FAVARA FARM CULTURAL PARK

Anatomia di un Dolore Invisibile

ROSANGELA LEOTTA

In Anatomy of an Invisible Pain #1, Rosangeles transforms the unseen trauma of psychological abuse into a powerful visual language. Through surreal, expressionist imagery, the work contrasts inner suffering with the indifferent routines of everyday life. By giving pain a visible form, the artist turns vulnerability into self-awareness, emancipation and rebirth.

Sacro Cuore

FANNI KOPÁCSI

"Sacred Heart" is a site-specific installation created for the abandoned spaces of the former Arenella Chemical Factory in Palermo. Through reclaimed fabrics, clothing, and domestic materials, Fanni Kopácsi transforms the traditional iconography of the Sacred Heart into a fragile, suspended presence, where spirituality, memory, and vulnerability become deeply intertwined.

Fanni Kopácsi is a contemporary artist born in 1991 in Budapest, Hungary, currently based in Palermo, Italy. Awarded the First Prize Award in the Versiona Thyssen competition at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, in 2022, her work was also selected as a finalist for International Agbar Award in Barcelona, in 2024.

GELA CIVICO 111

Hurma

ZEINEB FELLAH · NOURHENE BEN ABDALLAH · NAJLA HASSEN · SONIA BOUSLAMA

HURMA explores contemporary Arab femininity in Tunisia through the tension between visibility, intimacy and resistance to the gaze. Bringing together photography, writing, video and sound, the exhibition questions how female bodies and identities are represented, perceived and made accessible. Moving progressively from image to absence, HURMA creates a space where presence remains partially inaccessible and proximity begins where vision ends.

MAZZARINO THE EMBASSY OF FARM

Microclima

ACTORS FEDERICO GATTI · SYLVIA MILTON · FRANCESCO MORELLI WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALESSIA CRISTOFANILLI

Microclima is an original play exploring the normalization of right-wing politics and the gradual erosion of democratic culture through the intimate dynamics of a family. Inside a fortress-like home shared with 138 plants, five people withdraw from an external world they feel powerless to change. A family dinner brings buried tensions to the surface, raising a crucial question: is retreating into one’s own microclimate an act of resistance—or an escape from responsibility?

Co-produced by the Italian office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation

In collaboration with La Fabbrica dell’Attore – Teatro Vascello, Rome

Media partner: Scomodo

Mondovisioni con Internazionale e Cine&Agenzia

  • Night is not Eternal

    CUBA

    Per 7 anni Nanfu Wang segue Rosa María Payá nella lotta per la democrazia a Cuba, intrecciando memoria, esilio e derive autoritarie globali.

  • The Life that Remains

    PALESTINE · EGYPT

    The Life That Remains racconta la lotta di una madre palestinese per giustizia e memoria, tra dolore, resistenza e speranza di dignità e pace.

  • NINXS

    MEXICO

    Ninxs esplora identità non binarie e corpi in trasformazione, intrecciando intimità, desiderio e resistenza oltre le categorie di genere.

PALERMO MUSEO DELLE CITTA’ DEL MONDO

COLLETTIVO MADREPERLA

Giovanna B

Giovanna B is a transdisciplinary and transnational project combining theatre, circus, visual art, video and original music. Its chapter Mare Nostrum revisits the story of Giovanna Bonanno, a Sicilian healer executed in Palermo in 1789 for selling poison to women experiencing domestic violence. Through performance, aerial movement, masks, archival texts and contemporary Sufi music, the work explores female resistance, migration, spirituality and heresy, reclaiming Giovanna as a symbol of freedom and women’s agency.

Redroom

MP5

REDROOM reflects on human relationships as a form of shelter against collapse. Inside a bedroom engulfed in flames, a group of people rest together on the only apparently safe surface: the bed. Their physical closeness becomes both protection and a silent political gesture. While the city burns outside, sharing creates a suspended space of freedom, intimacy and resistance.

SANT’ANGELO MUXARO CROSSING THE BOUNDARIES OF LANDSCAPE

Crossing the Boundaries of Landscape emerges as a project of artistic residencies and situated practices, in which artists coming from contexts marked by conflict, inequality, and deep fractures — Gaza, Nigeria, and the border territories between Mexico and the United States — encounter the human and natural landscape of Sant’Angelo Muxaro.

DISCOVER MORE

VIZZINI LA CUNZIRIA

JELENA ŠKULIS. AND BENEDETTA ADDAMO

Mamma Re

A participatory project involving women from the local community—both mothers and non-mothers—that transformed dialogue and collective embroidery into a shared reflection on motherhood, care and responsibility towards future generations.

FRAUKE HUBER AND UWE H. MARTIN

Land Rush Ventures into Global Agriculture

LandRush investigates the social and environmental impacts of global agriculture, exploring land, water, seeds, and rights through multimedia research and art.

THE QUESTIONS REMAIN

Radical SHE 2026 connected women, communities and territories across Sicily, transforming art into a space for resistance, care and collective imagination. The exhibitions may have ended, but the questions they opened remain alive.

Radical SHE – Women Quadrennial of Art and Society

Discover the contents of the first edition of Radical SHE in 2022.