Progetto

Dora Budor: Autoreduction, at Progetto, in Tank Magazine

DORA BUDOR, AUTOREDUCTION

Until the mid-20th century, the economy of Salento, in Southern Italy, was centred on to***co. At the industry’s peak, more than half the subpeninsula’s population worked in its production, most of them women. In her exhibition Autoreduction, artist Dora Budor looked at this history through Italian agritourism, where former to***co factories are being converted into luxury hotels, to explore how goods are dissected and repurposed. The title refers to a collective anticapitalist strategy of unilaterally reducing the cost of essential items, usually through non-payment, in the manner of the tabacchine, who worked and organised collectively. In Italy, this famously played out through rent strikes in Rome, Milan and Turin in the 1970s. The exhibition asked how collective action might still be possible amid capitalism’s shifting values. Budor relocated conveyor tables from a disused factory, where they had sat decommissioned for three decades. After the exhibition closed, the conveyor belts were restored as dining tables in a hotel opened by the factory’s former owner.

Christabel Stewart, “Circular Economy”

Conveyor belts are a synecdoche for the tenets of flow and circulation that define the industrial age. Christabel Stewart traces how artists have reworked this industrial motif to comment on labour, movement and systems of production.

TANK Magazine Christabel Stewart photos: Simon Veres

Dora Budor
Call me gravity
WIELS, Brussels, Belgium, 2026 WIELS
curated by Pauline Hatzigeorgiou
June 12 — September 20, 2026

Inner Vampire, 2025
Cardboard box, Fresnel lens, portable monitor, electronics
28.5 × 37 × 32 cm

Vintages III, 2025
Cardboard box, Fresnel lens, portable monitor, electronics
28.5 × 42.2 × 35.2 cm

Inner Vampire and Vintages III form part of a series of works created by the artist using champagne crates salvaged from the streets of New York on New Year’s Eve. The assemblages, which also resemble low-tech reproductions of the cubic display cases used in museums, employ a lens that produces a distorted, almost psychedelic visual effect. The screens show excerpts from Marcel L’Herbier’s silent film L’Argent (1928), adapted from Émile Zola’s 1860 novel. Set in the Paris of the time, the film depicts stock market speculation and its effects on human relationships, providing a striking parallel between the economic dynamics of the early twentieth century and today’s financialisation of everyday life.

Noah Barker & Dora Budor
Orange Film I, 2023
HD Video, color, sound / 6’42”

This video, produced in collaboration with Noah Barker, takes the viewer on a tour of two architectural sites in New York: the High Line and Domino Park. Both sites are key examples of the repurposing of industrial infrastructure as ‘destination ­architecture’. Filmed with a handheld camera drunk on orange wine, the resulting image – unstable, slightly distorted and sepiatoned – evokes the earliest cinematic images of the city.

Noah Barker WIELS Pauline Hatzigeorgiou
photos: Fabrice Schneider

Dora Budor, Autophones, 2022–2026
Tonewood, s*x toys, electronics
Overall dimensions variable

Autophones are resonant sculptures embedded with s*x toys, which are crafted from tonewoods employed in the construction of classical instruments. Their forms are derived from the ‘male’ molds of rotating components used for casting large industrial machines and military equipment. Hidden within each of these sculptures is a libidinal motor. The vibration, which originally produced pleasure, is modified to operate continuously - it presents an endless stimulation, evolving into something deconstructive. Autophones pose the issue of a rhythm which in itself acts against the stability of visual form. Which is to say, that the beat has the power to decompose and dissolve the very coherence of form on which visuality may be thought to depend.

“As with Autophones (2022–), the automated world becomes foreign, the emission of invisible vibrations makes these works ‘neither purely abstract nor purely concrete and sensible.’ By this account, Budor’s practice is not so much site-specific as situative. If the site-specific is organised according to pre-established coordinates, the situative is what creates distance between the coordinates of the established space, without overriding it, in order for imagination to circulate. The situative is not strictly physical, nor strictly mental; it is a kind of materialism not founded in matter.” – exhibition text, Eleanor Ivory Weber

Autophone (Beam), 2026
Tonewood, s*x toys, electronics
17.5 × 126 × 14 cm

Autophone (Silencer), 2026
Tonewood, s*x toys, electronics
15 × 45 × 80 cm

Autophone (Sleeper), 2024
Tonewood, s*x toys, electronics
93.9 × 31.3 × 11.1 cm

Autophone (Cylinder), 2022
Tonewood, steel, s*x toys, electronics
39 × 93 × 29 cm

Autophone (Chamber), 2026
Tonewood, s*x toys, electronics
60 × 45 × 30.5 cm

Autophone (Bull), 2022
Tonewood, s*x toys, electronics
25 × 42 × 38 cm

Dora Budor: MY ENERGY COMES FROM FREEDOM
Preludes by Camilla Wills, Eleanor Ivory Weber, Henrik Olesen and Yvo Cho
Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany
June 27 – September 6, 2026


photos Oskar Lee

Niloufar Emamifar at WIELS, Brussels
Call me gravity
June 12 – September 20, 2026

Niloufar Emamifar
The Wolves, 2025
Polyurethane resin, soil, asphalt, dust 
380 x 47 x 3.5 cm

Call me gravity brings together international artists who explore these dynamics primarily through sculptural forms embedded in the building’s post-industrial architecture. The works draw attention to what remains invisible — what is considered useless or superfluous, such as forms of labour and care, yet proves indispensable to the system. They also point to the shrinking of the public sphere and its infrastructure, caught in the grip of capital, and raise questions about artistic production itself.

The thematic exhibition Call me gravity explores the concept of debt from various angles — focusing in particular on its impact on bodies and contemporary perceptions. Beyond its economic meaning, debt encompasses social, spatial, historical and emotional dimensions. It manifests concretely in the proliferation of credit lines, but also lurks in what eludes measurement, in what is neither accounted for nor recognised.

Artists: Dora Budor, Niloufar Emamifar, Annaïk Lou Pitteloud, Georgia Sagri, Gianna Surangkanjanajai, and Sung Tieu

Curator: Pauline Hatzigeorgiou
Curatorial interns: India Ricchi and Théo Jack Scherer

The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of performances, film screenings and talks and an upcoming publication.

Niloufar Emamifar WIELS Pauline Hatzigeorgiou

Photos 1-4, 6 Fabrice Schneider, 5 Simon Veres

Niloufar Emamifar at WIELS, Brussels
Call me gravity
June 12 – September 20, 2026

Niloufar Emamifar
Manduria, 2025
Polyurethane resin, soil, dust, rocks, glass
272 x 137 x 5.5 cm

Manduria is a cast of a site in Puglia, Italy. The work is part of an ongoing series of site-specific sculptures that translate legal and bureaucratic abstractions into material form. These sites are identified through a process of fieldwork that draws on local knowledge, oral accounts, and encounters with municipal and administrative systems.

Call Me Gravity
with Dora Budor, Niloufar Emamifar, Annaïk Lou Pitteloud, Georgia Sagri, Gianna Surangkanjanajai & Sung Tieu

WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels
Curated by Pauline Hatzigeorgiou
June 12 – September 20, 2026

Niloufar Emamifar WIELS Pauline Hatzigeorgiou

Photos 1-4 Fabrice Schneider, 5-9 Simon Veres

Dora Budor: MY ENERGY COMES FROM FREEDOM
Preludes by Camilla Wills, Eleanor Ivory Weber, Henrik Olesen and Yvo Cho
Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany
June 27 – September 6, 2026

Dora Budor’s exhibition takes dissociation as its mode of perception, where the loss of ground becomes a cumulative, shape-giving force. At Bonner Kunstverein, Budor negotiates Haus-Rucker-Co’s mid 1980s conversion of a flower market into a contemporary art center as it exists today. Rather than filling its singular hall, she moves through the architecture, drawing form from the psychic energies of social and economic life. Sculpture, video, sound, installation, and the work of other artists strategically engage the supposedly non-hierarchical exhibition system, and the freedom it seeks to stage.

The exhibition is accompanied by an essay written by Eleanor Ivory Weber and is structured through a prelude of moving image works by Camilla Wills, Eleanor Ivory Weber, Henrik Olesen, and Yvo Cho. Installed in the spaces that precede or surround the exhibition, these works speak on the limits and failures of language, social structures, morals, and value.

‘Art is not something that sits on top of reality, as if reality were merely a given upon which we walk for the sake of distraction from that given. What we call ‘reality’ is already a scene of sorts, where a principle we will never have direct access to lines the wings. The point is not to flood the wings with light. At the very least that would mean the show would be over, but, more, there’s just nothing there to expose. The principle cannot be witnessed. The point, instead, is to play in such a way that the principle in whose name your part will come to be written (but to which you have no direct access) illuminates the scene. This is the situative, imaginal space where energy comes out of nothing. I open the soles of my shoes, I see the money. The principle that got it there – obscure to me – is what intrigues, not the bills themselves.’ – excerpt, Eleanor Ivory Weber

dorabudor Viktor Neumann

Photos: Oskar Lee

Niloufar Emamifar at Kunstverein in Hamburg, A Nail to Hang the Day On, Curated by Anthony Huberman and Milan Ther, June 5 – September 22, 2026

Niloufar Emamifar
Cinema Anita, 2025
177 × 1600 × 270 cm
Wood, paint, nails, and glue

The Teatro Anita, constructed between 1922 and 1925 in Poggiardo by Avv. Paolo Pispico, was conceived as a project to promote popular culture through the adaptation of part of an adjacent ancient convent next to the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

Inaugurated in 1925 with the operetta ‘Il paese dei campanelli’, the theater soon encountered financial difficulties, leading to its conversion into a silent film cinema in 1928, a function it maintained until the advent of sound cinema in 1934. Substantial renovations in 1950 included the removal of the original box seating. The theater has remained vacant for the past thirty years.

All acoustic wooden wall panels from Cinema Anita were removed and installed in the final room of Progetto, and then reinstalled at Kunstverein in Hamburg, following the architectural configuration of the space while maintaining the original dimensions of the panels.

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Kunstverein in Hamburg
A Nail to Hang the Day On
Curated by Anthony Huberman and Milan Ther

With Georges Adéagbo, Stefano Arienti, Nairy Baghramian, Franco Bellucci, Beatrice Bonino, Hanne Darboven, Nicolas Deshayes, Miho Dohi, Niloufar Emamifar, Laura Lamiel, Brianna Leatherbury, Jac Leirner, CrossLypka, Liliana Moro, Anna Oppermann, Stéphanie Saadé, Timothy Lee Standring, Adrián Villar Rojas, Bri Williams

Images: Niloufar Emamifar with Nairy Baghramian, Beatrice Bonino, Nicolas Deshayes, Hanne Darboven

Niloufar Emamifar Kunstverein in Hamburg Anthony Huberman
photos 1-4: Edward Greiner, photos: 5-9: Simon Veres

The Air Conditioner (2016-2025) was produced in Lecce, Italy from iron ingots melted down from a decommissioned air-conditioning unit originally located in an insurance company in Tehran. The unit first appeared as part of a temporary public sculpture in Tehran in 2016. It was subsequently reassembled and returned to its original site in northeast Tehran, where it remained in operation until November 2018. The work was then transported to New York and melted into iron ingots, which were exhibited at the SculptureCenter in 2019 and again in 2021. In 2025, Emamifar brought the ingots to Lecce, where a local ironworker carved them into doorstops.

These were exhibited in Disjecta at Progetto, Lecce, where they functioned to hold open the gallery’s doors. At Emalin, the doorstop continues this operation: here it holds open a door not usually accessible to the public

Niloufar Emamifar
The Air Conditioner, 2016–2025
Mixed iron
2.5 x 8 x 4 cm

Niloufar Emamifar
The Air Conditioner, 2016–2025
Mixed iron
1.5 x 8.2 x 3 cm

Contour Fatigue II, Emalin, London, UK
17 April – 23 May 2026
Olga Balema, Adriano Costa, Niloufar Emamifar, Namio Harukawa, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Jac Leirner, Kate Spencer Stewart, Franco Vimercati

Courtesy of the artist and Progetto, Lecce.
Photos by Stephen James.

The new rooftop space at Progetto is connected to the main space by a small passageway, making concurrent programming possible, including exhibitions, screenings, readings, and more.

When we first conceived of the rooftop, we referred to it as the poetry space—or a space for poetry—thinking of poetics as something expansive. The rooftop is visible from the streets below, from the balconies of our neighbors, and from within Progetto. The stairs leading to the roof were designed by Grant Mooney.

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Il nuovo spazio sul tetto di Progetto è collegato allo spazio principale tramite un piccolo passaggio. È destinato a mostre, proiezioni, reading e altro. Siamo felici di espandere Progetto in questo modo e di rendere possibile una programmazione parallela.

Quando abbiamo immaginato per la prima volta il tetto, lo abbiamo chiamato lo spazio della poesia — o uno spazio per la poesia — pensando alla poetica come a qualcosa di espansivo. Il tetto è visibile dalla strada sottostante, dai balconi dei nostri vicini e dall’interno di Progetto. Le scale che conducono al tetto sono state progettate da Grant Mooney.

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Stairs
Grant Mooney & iron work by Emanuele Sergi (Gagliano del Capo)

Railing
La Bottega Del Ferro (Squinzano)

Photos

Marco Vitale
I am you,
you are me.
Let everything be
for our neighbor.
May 19, 2025, 6pm–sunset
Rooftop Space at Progetto

On Monday, May 19, 2025, from 6pm until sunset, Progetto inaugurated its new rooftop space with Marco Vitale’s work: I am you, you are me. Let everything be for our neighbor.

This durational, site-responsive work unfolded as an act of writing, witnessing, and intimate exchange. It began with a night spent alone writing inside Progetto and extended into a ritual shared with others—through a writing workshop.

Participants who had taken part in a writing process the day prior returned to guide one-on-one encounters throughout Progetto—a quiet choreography of voices, as performers read texts shaped by their time in the space. The rooftop became the place of arrival: a site of listening and shared reflection, as day turned to dusk.

The work closed with a projection of the writings in the Progetto library—a visual echo, both archive and offering.

Participants: Lara Gigante, Marco La Cava, Thomas Lanzellotti, Marvin Vese, Matteo Terzi, Danilo Billermann, Alba Cobo, Lauren Spedicato, Angelica Calabrese.


photos Gianluca Pisicchio