Following exhibitions dedicated to Julio Le Parc, Hugo Pratt, Armando Testa, and *Abitare il Rinascimento*, this marks a new international project produced by Opera Laboratori in collaboration with Galleria Continua. What do we carry with us? Objects, memories, emotions, habits, stories. And, above all, the memory of the lives those objects have touched. It is from this question that *WHAT WE CARRY WITH US*—the new exhibition by Subodh Gupta—originates. Running from November 27, 2026, to May 3, 2027, it brings the artistic practice of one of India’s most acclaimed contemporary artists into the Renaissance halls of the Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena. Curated by Irene Campolmi and produced by Opera Laboratori in collaboration with Galleria Continua, the exhibition was conceived specifically for the Palazzo’s historic spaces; it establishes a dialogue between the artist’s contemporary vision and the layered history of a building that has served as a site of transit, encounter, and memory for centuries. The project connects objects, spaces, and the daily life of the past, recreating the domestic environment for which many of the artworks were originally conceived.
It is precisely from this ongoing dialogue between past and present that *WHAT WE CARRY WITH US* takes shape. For decades, Subodh Gupta has been transforming everyday objects into powerful images of contemporary society. Pots, plates, bowls, kitchen utensils, containers, bicycles, and other common items are collected, amassed, and reassembled by the artist into large-scale installations and monumental sculptures. Objects we consider mundane in daily life thus acquire a new dimension. They are no longer merely things; they become keepers of memory, bearing traces of the people who used them, as well as the families, homes, and places from which they originate. This body of work is deeply rooted in the artist’s origins and the history of contemporary India—a nation shaped by profound transformations and migrations, where household objects can become traveling companions and witnesses to both individual and collective change.
