Polly Staple on Lydia Ourahmane's '5 Works' at Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation

Lydia Ourahmane's exhibition '5 Works' at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation in Venice, curated by Polly Staple, features works that oscillate between sculpture and infrastructure, including a pier for Poveglia, discarded hotel bed linen, a bead curtain made by incarcerated women, and a coin-operated light mechanism. The show emerges from collaborations with local laundries, prisons, foundries, and communities, refusing extraction from the lagoon's history. Staple discusses the ethical mode of collaboration, the political potential of unstable thresholds, and the material negotiations that define the project. The pier will become a functional public utility after the exhibition. The foundation, still establishing itself in Venice, adapted its operational logic to support the production.