The installation Sei dieffenbachia stems from the urgency to investigate a political issue: the right to housing. By ‘politics’, the artist means the modes of government related to a state, including social and welfare policies; reflecting on how these are intertwined with the history of public housing, the right to housing and its accessibility.
Mancini, in his practice, also analyses the relationship between human body and living space, through a process of measurement that highlights the proportions and conditions required to lead a dignified life.
These themes converge in the window shop in Via Aleardi where Domenico Antonio Mancini literally moves part of his home: the kitchen.
Numerous specimens of dieffenbachia, a genus of evergreen herbaceous perennials, have occupied the space for years. Some have grown to the ceiling, while others are writhing, leaning towards the window.
Each plant, each in its own way, adapts to the environment in order to exist. To the vitality of the plants the artist juxtaposes a red neon sign that reminds us how the struggle for existence also passes through the claiming of space. The relationship between interior and exterior space is reaffirmed in the action of trespassing: Mancini intervenes on the shop window sign, originally a flat sales office, with a spray can.
In Sei dieffenbachia, Mancini translates his political reflections into a work with poetic traits, analysing the urgency to intervene, publicly or collectively.
His works combine political and poetic, aesthetic and ethical aspects transforming them into materials, codes, and forms. By making politics without explicitly discussing it, and by reversing the relationships between objects, the artist invites passers-by on Via Aleardi to engage and intervene.

Mancini with the installation Sei dieffenbachia is the second artist chosen to activate SCONFINA, a project that wants to go beyond the boundaries of a given territory and escape the limits determined by the topic, it is a space open to dialogue 24 hours a day without imposed times. Night and day it searches for curious glances among hurried passers-by.

Project exhibited in:

Sei Dieffenbachia, curated by Rossana Ciocca and Helga Franza, Arthur Cravan Foundation, Milan, 2024

Sei Dieffenbachia @ Nomad Circle, curated by Untitled Association, Former Klinik Gut, St. Moritz, 2025