Scarecrow: Art as a Vital Guardian at Flashback Habitat Exhibition

With the arrival of spring and the beginning of field preparation, Flashback Habitat presents a compelling collective exhibition dedicated to the scarecrow, one of humanity's most ancient forms of protection. This enduring figure, utilized for millennia to safeguard cultivated lands, acts as a guardian that asserts its presence without force, a silent and potent admonition.

Traditionally crafted from discarded garments, straw, and recycled materials on a cross-shaped structure, the scarecrow serves as a static avatar of human presence. Simultaneously, it functions as an amulet, delineating territory and protecting the painstakingly earned harvest. It vigilantly oversees the fields from sowing through the critical autumn collection. Despite its sometimes unsettling appearance, the scarecrow is fundamentally innocuous, and for the exhibition's curators, it is interpreted as an archetype of non-violent, yet determined and defensive, intervention.

ALESSANDRO BULGINI, Scarecrow – La Maledizione, 2026, Installazione, Materiali di recupero, Dimensioni variabili — ALESSANDRO BULGINI, Scarecrow – The Curse, 2026, Installation, Recycled Materials, Variable Dimensions

«The scarecrow safeguards a living territory from external aggression and attacks. It is passive; it neither attacks nor reacts, but through its mere presence, it has always had the task of protecting what exists and existence itself. It is made in urgency, with whatever is at hand, with what is found where it will stand. It is put together with the scraps and debris of life. The scarecrow is the artwork, but it is also the artist: it is the Guardian. A humble element, which seemingly blends with its surroundings, yet plays an important role against certain dark forces.»

— Christian Caliandro, co-curator with Alessandro Bulgini

The exhibition delves into the symbolic and ethical dimensions of the scarecrow, spanning various artistic forms including performance, sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, photography, and video art. The field guardian is interpreted in strikingly diverse ways: for some, it manifests as a grand wooden cat; for others, an imposing golem. It transforms into an abstract assemblage of recycled pieces or is depicted as a worker in tomato fields. Its presence is narrated through fantastic bestiaries, surreal sculptures, perturbing oil paintings, or installations that evoke science fiction settings. The field's scarecrow even finds an abstract resonance in an artwork by Emilio Vedova, a tension-filled sculptural composition that powerfully dominates the space.