Mnemosfera Lancetti
Exhibition by elisi
Curated by collettivoSERRA
On display from 08/11/2026 to 04/12/2026
Opening Sunday 08/11/2026 at 18:00
Lancetti railway station, Milan
Mnemosfera Lancetti is the title of the exhibition by elisi – Marta Elisa Cecchi and Clorinda Sissi Galasso – part of the exhibition season Co-Presence is a Passing Gesture, which reflects on public art as a relational condition in which the intermittent presence of passersby becomes an active element of the work.
Researchers with PhDs in Design from Politecnico di Milano, Cecchi and Galasso work on what places hold onto over time, beyond their architecture: the immaterial layer that accumulates through transit and through the lives of the people who pass through. They call it mnemosphere, a neologism that combines mn (memory, from the Greek), emo (emotions) and sphere (as in atmosphere). It is the sediment of lived experience, memory and affect that a place takes in over time and that, in the right conditions, can become perceptible again and change how the place is experienced in the present.
spazioSERRA is the subject of the work before it is its container. The installation turns it into a souvenir of itself: a miniature replica of the space sits at its centre; the floor is covered in coloured paper confetti, the remains of a celebration that has ended. In quiet moments the confetti lies still, but a draught is enough to set it moving again, making visible what has settled there over time.
Lancetti is a station like many others, a place that moves people through without inviting them to stop. For years spazioSERRA has been an interruption there, something that cuts across the flow and is noticed in passing. With this work, that pause becomes a chance to revisit the memory of the space and of the people who have passed through it.
elisi is an artistic collective born from the encounter between Marta Elisa Cecchi and Clorinda Sissi Galasso, both researchers and PhDs in Design. Their research focuses on the themes of atmosphere and the memory of places, explored through artworks and installation spaces that intertwine artistic practice, theoretical reflection, and design experimentation. The collective’s practice takes shape from the findings of their scientific research, reinterpreted and translated into new expressive languages that open further avenues of enquiry.
Marta Elisa Cecchi is an Interior Designer (MSc) and PhD candidate in Design, is an independent researcher. Her doctoral research explores temporary exhibition spaces from an aesthetic and atmospheric perspective. She specialises in exhibition design for scientific research and for editorial projects focusing on design books and catalogues. She is an editor of the magazine Inventario.
Clorinda Sissi Galasso, Communication Designer (MSc) and PhD in design, is currently research fellow and adjunct professor at the Department of Design of Politecnico di Milano. Her work focuses on the communication of memory, with particular attention to the valorization of archival documents and the relationship between memory and places, explored through the concept of mnemotope. Her research investigates phototextual practices and verbo-visual design, from a critical perspective grounded in design responsibility. Alongside her academic research, she develops artistic, exhibition, and curatorial projects, including the ongoing phototextual project Mnemofoto (since 2021), the exhibition La terra è una grande memoria (2025), and the photographic series I cut my hair and I’m not sad (2024).