Insisting on Existing, 2026, is an experimental installation by Analize Nicolini composed of a modular cement column, a punching bag placed on the floor, a suspended tatami mat and small cement artefacts with gloves fitted into them.

The work was presented at SOMA Galeria in Curitiba in the exhibition Insisting on Existing: Protocols of a Public Studio, with a wall text by Kamilla Nunes. Its title contributed to the naming of the exhibition, establishing a relationship between the struggle spatially organised by the installation and the conditions of labour, production and persistence made public within the studio.

The installation reverses the conventional organisation of a space of combat. The cement column assumes the position of the structure against which the confrontation is directed. Its weight, modular repetition and verticality bring together support and obstruction. Removed from suspension, the punching bag remains on the floor as the structure’s shadow. The tatami mat, which would normally provide a base and cushion a fall, is raised and transformed into a covering. These displacements alter the relationships between impact, protection and support.

In the smaller artefacts, cement reappears at a different scale, associated with the gloves. The material of the structure also becomes a vestige of the confrontation. The gloves suggest a body and an effort; cement adds weight, fixity and resistance. The structure remains standing, while its material reappears alongside the instruments of struggle.

Within the context of Protocols of a Public Studio, the artist kept the installation open to possibilities arising during production, installation and encounters. These include the incorporation of gloves used in other professions. The suggestion came from the worker who delivered the cement pieces and was wearing gloves during the delivery. His observation became part of the work’s development, expanding the relationships between the body, labour, protection, risk and structure.

This event forms part of the installation’s history. The transport of the pieces, the labour required to move them, the conversation and the installation decisions enter the work’s field of reflection. The inclusion of other gloves remains an open possibility for further development, connecting the space of struggle to different working situations and to the ways in which the body is protected, exposed and assigned a function.

The body is suggested by the objects and their displaced positions. The bag on the floor introduces a temporality of accumulated impact, wear and repetition. The suspended tatami mat displaces the conditions of support and protection. The gloves associated with cement make visible the relationship between effort and persistence. In Kamilla Nunes’s reading, the work approaches the idea of “continuing after the fall”.

Insisting on Existing gives form to persistence in the face of structures that remain. Struggle can leave marks and vestiges even when the structure continues to stand. Developed in a context that brought together creation, exhibition, circulation, sales and debate, the installation connects this persistence to the material and institutional conditions of producing, presenting and sustaining an artistic practice.

The Consolidated Conceptual Notes, displayed on the exhibition wall, bring together the work’s key lines of reflection and document a stage of its research. The document is available in Portuguese and English below and on the exhibition page. The installation and its possible developments remain open.

Consolidated Conceptual Notes — PDFs

Download in English — PDF
Baixar em português — PDF