On Wednesday 18 February 2026, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere presents EVERY CARESS, A BLOW, a solo exhibition by Martina Zanin curated by Antonio Grulli. The exhibition will be open to the public from Thursday 19 February to Saturday 18 April 2026.
Deeply rooted in the autobiographical dimension, Martina Zanin’s work investigates complex relational dynamics shaped by absence, memory, trauma, tension, and power. Through the use of different media—from photography to sculpture and installation—the artist explores the subtle threshold between protection and control, placing vulnerability at the heart of her practice. Her research also extends to the relationship between human and animal, activating metaphors and parallelisms.
EVERY CARESS, A BLOW invites viewers to linger within that charged line between care and control, affection and power, inheritance and possession. The exhibition examines how the body and identity take form through relations of power and affective domination, which bind the subject to those who protect it. What renders these relations truly unsettling is not their overt violence, but that which is internalised and guarded while remaining invisible, continuing to act within both the social sphere and the intimate, physical realm.
At the intersection of psychology, ethology, spirituality, and personal experience, Zanin presents a body of work spanning photography, installation, and architectural elements. The predator–prey dynamic is central to her research. The hawk and the hare become symbolic and totemic presences, linked to ancestral power and to the relationship between ferocity, instinct, tension, and vulnerability.
