Benni Bosetto's Blue Kind: when a drawing becomes a room

A voice occupies a room for a moment; a drawing can wait for the next visitor. Benni Bosetto's The Ballad of the Blue Kind gives those different durations a shared subject: loneliness. IED Firenze and Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi conceived a Florence project pairing a short performance programme with a longer exhibition. The two listed performance dates have now passed; the exhibition's calendar extends into December.

Drawing that takes up space

At IED's former Teatro dell'Oriuolo, Palazzo Strozzi's account describes large blue fabric drapes and drawing-boxes that bring images and memories into an installation. The drawing is not presented only as something flat to inspect. It becomes an object within a room, with the space around it part of the proposition.

That suggests an interesting way to approach the work: look at what carries an image, not just what the image depicts. A box has an inside and an outside. Fabric can divide a space without becoming a permanent wall. Those are questions prompted by the published materials, not descriptions of a route PING has walked. They leave room for visitors to notice relationships rather than arrive with a supplied emotional verdict.

Five characters, several kinds of making

IED describes the performance conceived for the project as inspired by the musical, with five characters expressing different forms of solitude. Palazzo Strozzi's programme names Francesca Agosta, Chiara Belfanti, Enrico Fantoni, Lidiia Tarabukina and Stella Tzina as voices, alongside Lorenzo Manzotti on guitar and Sara Moretti on accordion. Those credits make the musical dimension concrete, without turning a published programme into PING's account of a performance it witnessed.

The curators are Daria Filardo of IED Firenze and Martino Margheri of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. IED also identifies its Curatorial Practice master's students as participants in the project's development and research. Keeping these roles visible matters. An artist's project can hold a clear authorship while depending on performers, musicians and curatorial work that should not disappear into a single headline name.

A subject allowed to change shape

The organisers frame loneliness as changing across life, capable of containing lightness as well as drama. Their description resists one fixed lonely figure. PING's reading is that the split format proposes two ways of paying attention: following other people's voices together, then spending time with images and objects at an individual pace. Neither is automatically more truthful. The productive question is what a change of medium makes possible.

For makers reading from Lagos, Nairobi or London, that question travels farther than the event listing. A multidisciplinary project need not repeat the same message in every medium. A song can unfold; an object can remain. This is a proposed creative prompt, not a claim that Bosetto's methods will produce a particular response elsewhere, or that an exhibition treats loneliness.

One project, two calendars

The free exhibition is listed for 22 October-23 December 2026 at Via dell'Oriuolo 31, Monday-Friday 09:00-18:00. Those stated weekday hours are not confirmation of Saturday access. The organiser's programme scheduled the Strozzina performance only for 22 and 23 October, 17:30-19:30, with half-hour entry and free mandatory booking. Both dates are now past, not an invitation to reserve a place. Check current exhibition arrangements before travelling; the longer exhibition and the expired performance window are different things.

Blue Kind is most interesting here as a proposition about form: what can a room retain when a voice is no longer there? Start with the makers and the materials, keep the two calendars distinct, and find more creative practice in PING's reading archive.