Carola Bonfili's 3412 Kafka Exhibition at Smart in Rome Explores Cosmic and Imaginative Realms

Carola Bonfili's exhibition 3412 Kafka at Smart in Rome ran from 23 November to 23 February 2018, featuring works inspired by an asteroid named after Franz Kafka. The asteroid, discovered in 1983 by US astronomers Randolph Kirk and Donald Rudy, sparked workshops Bonfili conducted with educator Irene Bianchetti in Rome's Quarticciolo quarter in 2015 and at Smart in 2017. Drawings from these sessions were projected as Stellario #1 (2015) and Stellario #2 (2017), while a video documented a Morse code performance using spotlights on apartment facades to signal imaginary planet names. Six sculptural landscapes, five small and one larger, made of resin, marble, pigments, salt, wood, and cement, evoked alien terrains and postindustrial ruins, with one containing rows of crude beds. A virtual-reality piece by Bonfili, set to a soundtrack by Francesco Fonassi, offered a six-minute journey through an earthlike, postapocalyptic landscape with an accelerated diurnal cycle, culminating at a lagoon with a glowing geometric form. The exhibition emphasized imaginative engagement, with Bonfili noting in an interview her interest in creating temporal suspension for viewers. All works, including the VR experience, were titled 3412 Kafka, reflecting Kafkaesque themes of the uncanny and bizarre.