REALIA by SABRINA RATTÉ

MEET Digital Culture Center – the first International Center for Digital Art and Culture in Italy, established in Milan with the support of Fondazione Cariplo and founded by Maria Grazia Mattei – will once again this year, for the third consecutive time, be the headquarters of Porta Venezia Design District for Milan Design Week 2025.

On this occasion, the public will be able to visit the exhibition Realia by Sabrina Ratté: this is the first Italian solo exhibition of the Québécois visual artist who explores the convergence between technology and biology, questioning the new relationship between nature and the digital environment. Through an immersive exhibition path – which fits perfectly into the MEET the Nature program that addresses the theme of nature in a critical and innovative way, beyond the simple discussion on recycling and sustainability – the artist investigates the interaction between materiality, virtuality, and spirituality, proposing speculative scenarios in which the natural world evolves in symbiosis with the residues of technological civilization. A journey made possible thanks also to the support of Haiki+, a leading company in the environmental sector dedicated to recycling, recovery, and treatment of industrial waste by applying the principles of circular economy.

«In an era when man's footprint on the planet is also manifested through the waste it leaves behind, “Realia” explores the interconnections between waste, ecosystems, and technology, questioning how the residues of human activity can transform into new environments and forms of life» emphasizes Maria Grazia Mattei, curator of the exhibition and president of MEET. «Ratté's work moves between biology and environment, imagining landscapes where abandoned waste merges with organic and artificial elements, giving rise to post-anthropocenic worlds. Her creations evoke realities in which the digital, the residual, and the living intertwine, suggesting an ecosystem in continuous metamorphosis, where waste becomes material for new forms of existence and memory.»     

A fruitful synergy between MEET – always attentive to major emerging social and environmental challenges and reflections on the relationship between humans, technology, and nature in an inter-specific and non-anthropocentric perspective – and Haiki+, which distinguishes itself particularly for the attention dedicated to the world of WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), engaging in the collection, recovery, and treatment of electrical and electronic equipment, aiming to enhance the precious materials they contain.

Sabrina Ratté's works transform the digital image into a malleable medium, modeled through 3D scans, analog video synthesizers, artificial intelligence, and digital animations. Her artistic practice embraces video, interactive installations, and digital sculptures, creating ecosystems where the living and non-living merge. In Inflorescences (2023), nature mutates to coexist with electronic waste, redefining the very idea of ecosystem and cohabitation between organisms and human waste. Cyberdelia (2024), on the other hand, explores the relationship between artificial intelligence and human perception through an interaction with the public based on symbols and randomness, evoking the cybercultural utopias of the 80s and 90.

In Plane of Incidence I and II (2024), abandoned objects are digitized and transformed into new forms of life, reflecting on the agency of objects, that is, on their capacity for action, and on the unpredictable evolutions of matter. Floralia (2021), inspired by the writings of Donna Haraway and Ursula K. Le Guin, transports the viewer into a speculative future where extinct plant species are digitally preserved, in an archive where memory and perception overlap, raising questions about the continuity between past and future.         

Through a fusion of aesthetics, poetry, and philosophical reflection, Realia highlights intuition, emotional connection, and critical sense as tools to face contemporary environmental challenges. Ratté's work is located at the intersection of art, science, and technology, investigating the transformation of ecosystems in the digital realm and the way we perceive the world through electronic media.

The digital information tools - audioguide and the new chatbot AskMeet - are developed in collaboration with Converso. In collaboration with the Quebec Delegation in Italy.