Capriccio
Decoro Mediterraneo
The carpet captures a suspended moment, an image seen from above that oscillates between dream and tragedy. Barely perceptible embroideries are hidden among its fibres, figures of men and women lying down that emerge only by touch, revealing themselves to those who linger to touch the fabric, in the very act of seeking. Their elusive presence tells a dual narrative: bodies abandoned to the pleasure of the waves or, on the contrary, lost in the sea, victims of a tragic destiny.
This work was created to reflect on the Mediterranean as a shared space, a territory that tells different stories depending on who observes it and who crosses it. Here the fragmentation is both conceptual and visual: the carpet becomes a witness to a broken reality, suspended between those who sail for leisure and those who do so out of necessity, between the lightness of summer and the weight of an ever more topical tragedy. The embroidered bodies are not mere decorative elements, but fragments of stories, symbols of interrupted lives, of broken dreams.
Even the sea, evoked by the intensity of the colour, becomes a fragment: a circumscribed portion of a wider and ambiguous horizon, an unstable border between salvation and danger, between hope and despair. The theme of memory is intertwined with that of fragmentation: Decoro Mediterraneo is a tactile archive, in which memory resurfaces through the gesture of caressing the fabric. Each figure is a detail that slowly reveals itself, a fragment of a broader story that invites us to reconnect stories that are often forgotten.
Even the title plays on the duplicity of the term “decoration”: on the one hand, decoration understood as ornamentation, on the other, decoration understood as dignity. Traditionally, a carpet is an object of decoration, but here it becomes a surface for reflection, a place that holds the memory of those who have been swallowed up by the sea, leaving no trace.
Through its ambiguous perception and non-immediate revelation, the carpet suggests an act of justice and hope, shaping an image that can only be recomposed through the gaze and touch of the observer. Decoro Mediterraneo is a fragment of a larger reality, a textile sign that invites us to see, discover and remember.
Eleonora Todde is an Italian designer and artist whose work moves between design, art and poetry, with the aim of creating objects and spaces capable of arousing emotions, reflection and wonder. A graduate in Experimental Design at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and in Interior Design at the Milan Polytechnic, she has developed a design approach that blends conceptual research, material sensitivity and a strong narrative dimension.
Founder of Eleonora Todde Design & Art Studio, she explores the boundaries between art and design through the creation of unique objects and small series, experimenting with materials, techniques and forms with an evocative aesthetic. Her work spans product and interior design to the visual arts, with a focus on the poetics of the object and its ability to tell stories.
Through her research, Eleonora Todde investigates the evocative power of objects, transforming design into a means of exploring memory, collective identity and our relationship with the world.