On the occasion of the "Giornata del Contemporaneo" 2022, the Italian Cultural Institute in Brussels, exhibits the work "Posthumous maps" by Piedmontese artist Eugenio Tibaldi, which will be exhibited at its headquarters at 38 rue de Livourne.

The map is one of the first objects to determine an organic attempt by humans to record, narrate and control the natural territory. To make maps is to offer a tool for understanding a place, defining a path and even perhaps meaning.

It is in this groove that Eugenio Tibaldi's work " Posthumous maps," made in Brussels in 2017 for the exhibition "Posthumous Identity," stands. A work that pushes the map into another territory, leaving the spatial dimension to enter the temporal and perceptual dimension of the narrated place: thus on the military map of the early twentieth century used by the artist we find a series of different interventions, between collage and painting, that reveal unusual pairings.

In fact, the fragments, made with an almost scientific method, juxtapose sources of three different origins, creating an unprecedented topography: testimonies of a historical nature, stratified by time; images selected by the artist through a questionnaire proposed to the inhabitants of Brussels, thus based on a 'popular' criterion; and choices determined in a 'meritocratic' manner, thanks to the suggestions proposed by excellent Brussels personalities. This process, combining seemingly heterogeneous elements, determines instead a unified aesthetic construction that draws on the most contemporary sociological theories, evoking a possible scheme for overcoming the limits of our society, in an attempt to map a world yet to be imagined.

The planet, as well as our democracy, are suffering today. Engaging in the search for possible solutions becomes a duty not only to save the Earth, but to save ourselves. The gaze of art, both lateral and 'useless,' thus becomes essential to try to chart other possible paths, not yet explored, such as those in the map created by Tibaldi.