Exhibition on plastic titled Before – After – Again

Exhibition Concept – “Before, After, Again” State Tactile Museum Omero, Ancona Hosted at the State Tactile Museum Omero, Before, After, Again explores the ethical, social, and material evolution of contemporary Italy through eight everyday objects collected from Italian beaches. Each piece, once waste, becomes a metaphor for change and responsibility.

1. Core Idea

The installation reinterprets a group of everyday objects in dialogue with Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Italia riciclata. If Pistoletto reassembled discarded materials into a map of Italy, this project offers an ethical and social version: a narrative about a country striving to reinvent not only matter but itself—its habits and behaviors.

2. Curatorial Concept

The exhibition unfolds across three tables - BEFORE, AFTER, and AGAIN - telling the “material biography” of eight common objects found on Italian shores.

• BEFORE presents prints or drawings;
• AFTER displays the real objects;
• AGAIN shows their transformation or sustainable rebirth.

The goal is not to teach recycling but to raise awareness: a single beach umbrella cone is insignificant, but hundreds together expose the scale of waste.

Four thematic pairs guide the journey:

• Conceptual: Toys – Lighters/e-cigs → Energy and imagination.
• Upcycling: Jeans – Coffee capsules → Turning waste into social and aesthetic value.
• Positive Evolution: Cotton swabs – Dog waste rolls → From plastic to biodegradable materials.
• Manual Action: Umbrella cones – Bottles/caps → Small gestures improving collective systems.

3. The Objects

Seven emblematic stories show transformation in action: fast-fashion jeans return as artisan pieces; coffee capsules turn into aluminum mosaics; cotton swabs evolve into paper; dog rolls become compostable; lighters become light; toys return to children; umbrella cones and bottle caps symbolize care and prevention.

Colorful fishing nets connect all sections, representing the invisible ties between daily gestures and collective fate.

4. Spatial Structure

Three tables in sequence (linear or semicircular):

• Table 1 – BEFORE: texts, data, and context.
• Table 2 – AFTER: real waste collected on beaches.
• Table 3 – AGAIN: regenerated equivalents or prototypes of rebirth.

A participatory board invites visitors to suggest their own reuse ideas, closing the cycle “from waste to possibility.”

5. Critical Message

Behind each object lies a paradox: a nation of excellence that also generates waste, capable of creating beauty yet struggling to preserve it. The installation becomes a moral and material radiograph - not a condemnation, but a sign of faith in change. Every fragment reveals that transformation has already begun.

6. Sense of Hope

Matter is not punished but redeemed. Each table builds an emotional progression: hope is visible in new materials - paper cotton swabs, compostable rolls, jeans turned into bags, lighters reborn as light.

7. Public Involvement

All objects can be touched, consistent with the museum’s tactile mission. A single umbrella cone seems sterile, but hundreds together become emblematic.

At the end, a “Board of Ideas” invites visitors to answer: “What else could I do with this object?”

Their replies, pinned with recycled bottle caps, form a collective map of the future.

8. Conclusion

Together, these eight stories depict an Italy still capable of renewal.

Eight objects—eight symbols of infinity (∞)—illustrate the continuous regeneration of matter and thought: not an ending, but a return.

Eight objects to tell an infinite cycle of transformation: from use to waste, from waste to rebirth.