FREAKS

2026

MARA CIPRIANO INTRODUCES

A NEW PROJECT OF 12 ART EXHIBITIONS IN 2026

"A hug to anyone who has felt different at least once in life.

Yet you are an elegant, colorful garment among a thousand basic white ones.”

MANIFESTO

Concept by Mara Cipriano Senior Art Curator

Freaks 2026 is a space dedicated to celebrating diversity and creative energy, recognizing the power that comes from a profound self-awareness.

In this safe space, diversity is not a limitation but a horizon: those who observe the world with heightened sensitivity, who perceive what others overlook, who transform their wounds into language, find a place to be authentically themselves without compromise.

Art thus becomes necessary expression, revelation, therapy, rebellion, and play. This series is for those who, at least once in their life, have felt “creep,” “cringe,” excluded, different, outside the norm, who have seen something others could not. We recall some great masters and their works: from Frida’s wounded bodies to Van Gogh’s fluid lines, from Caravaggio’s marginality to the playful extravagance of director Tim Burton, from Dante’s faintings to Leopardi’s desire and fear of seeing beyond. Diversity becomes the grammar of imagination: it breaks imposed order and opens new perspectives.

Here, there is space for those who want to speak their truth authentically; here, rebellion is an act of resistance and renewal. Marginality becomes light: those who are out of place illuminate the world, challenge routine, destabilize the obvious, defy the obvious, and open space for poetry.

Every pearl born of discomfort, every unexpected and joyful color, every act of courage lived on the margins is what makes art immortal. Here, those who feel strange become essential.

The series is not merely a succession of exhibitions, but a journey of discovery into the deepest self and its subsequent expression, fearless, with the strength of those who dare to break the rules, and the magic of those who transform the margins into the starting point of a new universe. Freaks is the celebration of authenticity and the ordinary madness of the artist.

FREAKS 2026 is not a theme.

It is a position.

It is a space created for those who have felt creep, cringe, out of place, different, too sensitive, too deep, too much. For those who have never fit into the white noise of what is considered “normal”.

Born from the curatorial vision of Mara Cipriano, Freaks 2026 is a year-long journey made of 12 exhibitions, one per month, conceived as a continuous artistic residency rather than a simple exhibition calendar. This project is dedicated to celebrating diversity as power, sensitivity as strength, and authenticity as a necessary act.

Here, marginality becomes light.

Here, wounds become language.

Here, art is not decoration, but revelation, therapy, rebellion, and play.

A full year of:

• continuous curatorial support

• structured visibility

• constant presence

• critical accompaniment

• and a real, coherent artistic path

All of this proposed at what can only be described as the most advantageous opportunity of the entire year, across galleries. You have only SIX DAYS left to seize it. Not because of pressure. But because Freaks 2026 is selective by nature.

This is not an open call.

It is a curatorial choice.

Those who enter Freaks 2026 do not enter a program.

They enter a position.

FREAKS 2026 is not for everyone.

And that’s the point.