Qiu Yi's Mille Parole Exhibition at Accademia delle Arti del Disegno

The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence hosts Qiu Yi's solo exhibition 'Mille Parole' (A Thousand Words), featuring installations and ink paintings that bridge ancient Chinese techniques with contemporary existential questions. The show opens with 'Ao Tu', an installation of 30 antique stone ink-grinding dishes and 470 cement casts arranged in a geometric grid on the floor, evoking the dualism of Yin and Yang. Above this, a seven-meter painting titled 'Qianziwen' (Thousand Characters) invites viewers to look upward; this ongoing series aims for one thousand pieces, inspired by the classic Chinese text of non-repeating characters. The exhibition concludes with 'Er shi si zhen yan' (The Twenty-Four Truths), a work contrasting childhood purity with adult disillusionment in social and political dynamics. Qiu Yi, born in Yantai in 1982, uses ink on raw rice paper and traditional calligraphy as a powerful pictorial gesture. The exhibition was curated by Stefania Rinaldi and documented by photographer Simone Ridi.