Contemporary Iconographies: Francesca Mavaracchio’s Doors

During Francesca Mavaracchio's residency at MacDowell, this archive became the foundation for a more defined sculptural investigation, as Mavaracchio began identifying recurring visual structures and grouping them into a series of iconographies that would guide the final work.

At MacDowell, Mavaracchio shifted from accumulation toward interpretation, exploring how a vast collection of images could be transformed into a physical and symbolic object. Working through sketches, drawings, and digital studies, she began to consider how these recurring images could be translated into form. The residency offered a period of focused exploration, allowing the questions surrounding the work to develop without the immediate demands of production. This time of uncertainty and reflection became essential to determining the sculpture’s eventual direction.

"Doors" reflects Mavaracchio’s ongoing interest in the relationship between architecture and sculpture, particularly in how structure can shape perception and meaning. The work considers the door not only as an architectural element but also as a threshold between states— between past and present, individual experience and collective memory, image and object. Through the accumulation of repeated visual motifs, the work examines how shared symbols emerge and how images can simultaneously simplify complex events while creating a sense of universality.

The eight iconographies represented in "Doors" are drawn from protest imagery that circulated between 2020 and 2022, a period in which images became a primary means of witnessing, communicating, and interpreting social movements. By translating these visual patterns into sculptural relief, Mavaracchio investigates the relationship between repetition and recognition, and how meaning is constructed through the continual encounter with familiar forms.

The six weeks at MacDowell provided a crucial moment of development for the project. Removed from the routines of her studio practice, Mavaracchio was able to remain with the questions emerging from her research and allow the work to evolve gradually. The residency became a space where the conceptual framework of "Doors" could be clarified and where the relationship between collected material, visual language, and sculptural form could be tested. The work was subsequently further developed, produced, and exhibited during her fellowship at Taubman College, University of Michigan.

Francesca Mavaracchio is an Italian architect and co-founder of 4051, an architecture practice based in Italy and working internationally. She is currently a Fellow at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she teaches and conducts research. Her architectural practice is grounded in the realities of construction. Structure plays a central role in her projects, acting as both a spatial and organizational driver. It is approached not only for its technical possibilities, but also for the way it shapes space. As form, it defines rhythm, scale, light, and atmosphere. An interest in structure, mass, and form connects her work to sculpture. Her practice and research often move between the two. While architecture frames everyday life, sculpture allows her to look more closely at how space is perceived and moved through. Architecture encloses space, while sculpture articulates form within it.