From 12 June to 30 August 2026, the site-specific installation Brain Drain (Fuga di Cervelli) by Laurina Paperina is on view at the underpass in Piazzale Orsi, Rovereto.
Photo credit: https://www.super-fluo.net/nuvolette-2026/
As part of the eighth edition of the Nuvolette Illustration Festival, Laurina Paperina unveiled her site-specific project Brain Drain (Fuga di Cervelli) on 12 June, transforming the underpass in Piazzale Orsi into a temporary exhibition space open to the public until 30 August.
A place of everyday passage, evocative of a non-place, the underpass is reimagined as a suspended visual landscape poised between imagination and reflection. Paperina's installation unfolds as a constellation of anthropomorphic brains, complete with eyes, beaks, legs and wings, far removed from any unsettling or sinister imagery. Instead, these playful, pop-inspired figures emerge as light-hearted, ironic presences. Beneath their vibrant aesthetic, however, lies a deeper reflection on the complexities of contemporary life.
Photo credit: Source Instagram @laurina_paperina
For Laurina Paperina, these flying brains become a metaphor for the instability that defines the present, and for the difficulty of finding balance in a society driven by productivity, rationality and efficiency. Their ceaseless movement speaks both to the collective and the individual dimension, addressing themes such as identity, vulnerability and the constant need for self-reinvention. The drain evoked in the title lends itself to multiple interpretations. While it inevitably recalls the socio-cultural phenomenon of "brain drain," it also suggests an inner movement: that of a restless mind unable to come to a standstill, perpetually propelled towards new directions, at times to the point of losing itself. With Brain Drain (Fuga di Cervelli), Paperina once again demonstrates her ability to combine an immediate and highly recognisable visual language with a critical reflection on contemporary society, inviting viewers to engage with complex issues through an imaginative universe where wit, lightness and conceptual depth coexist.
Photo credit: Source Instagram @laurina_paperina
Laurina Paperina (Rovereto, 1980), affectionately known as La Pape, lives in Duckland. Throughout her career, she has exhibited in galleries, foundations, museums and public spaces across Italy and internationally, taking part in numerous art fairs and events dedicated to contemporary art. Her practice is distinguished by an instantly recognisable visual language in which pop aesthetics and comic-book imagery merge into an ironic and compelling narrative. Through deliberately irreverent humour, Paperina challenges the mechanisms of contemporary communication and the conventions of the art system, playfully exposing its rhetoric, ambitions and self-referential tendencies.
