Stato di Confine, the exhibition-installation by Matteo Attruia, represents the public outcome of the participatory project In Ascolto. Tracce lungo il margine, promoted by QuiAltrove Associazione ETS with the support of the Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia.

More than a traditional exhibition, the project takes the form of a collective work developed through a process that involved several towns in Friuli Venezia Giulia — Gorizia, Monfalcone, Palmanova, San Vito al Tagliamento, and Trieste — activating workshops and meetings with young people, migrant women, the elderly, refugees, and people in vulnerable situations.

Words, drawings, marks, and stories collected during the workshops have been reworked by the artist into an installation that gives the community back its own voices, transforming a shared experience into a visual and conceptual device.

At the heart of the project is the shift from “state border” to “state of border”: the boundary is no longer seen as a geographical line, but as an emotional, political, and human condition. In a territory historically marked by borders, the work invites reflection on the idea of the border as a space of relationship and transformation.

As critic Daniele Capra notes, in the work of Matteo Attruia language becomes a critical tool capable of overturning conventions and opening new possibilities of meaning. In this project the artist also takes an important step in his practice: his role shifts from authorial assertion to one of listening and restitution.

Stato di Confine thus becomes an example of how contemporary art can activate participatory and social processes, bringing creativity, territory, and people into dialogue.