Between Ancient Symbols and Contemporary Visions, DMEC Celebrates the Eternal Feminine

Audience seated in an industrial laboratory while a speaker talks in front of a screen showing the title “Eterno Femminino.”

The Eternal Feminine. Between Archetype and Stereotype stems from the desire to investigate how the female figure has been conceived, represented, and transmitted throughout history. The project originates from the study of Paleolithic and Neolithic art, and in particular from the prehistoric Venuses - small sculptures that, during the Pleistocene, constituted one of the most widespread and powerful symbolic expressions of the Feminine. These objects, both enigmatic and evocative, reveal an ancestral relationship with generative power, the cycles of life, and a complex symbolic imagination.

Through the surveying of casts from the Museum and Institute of Florentine Prehistory and the reproduction of several Venuses - both at their original scale and enlarged - the project proposes a critical and sensitive reinterpretation. The archaic forms of the body, their abstraction, and their proportions become tools to explore what of the Archetype persists or transforms within contemporary representations. The Feminine is understood not as a fixed entity, but as a living field of meanings, open and continuously evolving.

Alongside this dialogue with origins, the project encourages reflection on contemporary representations of femininity: on the cultural narratives that shape it, the stereotypes that constrain it, and the visions that expand it. The aim is to create spaces where diverse languages - artistic, communicative, design-related - can contribute to restoring the complexity and plurality of the Feminine beyond simplification.

The key word is participation. The project includes two calls to action: the first, an open call for university students from any discipline, inviting interdisciplinary perspectives; the second, by invitation, addressed to artists and communicators active in the contemporary scene. The coexistence of different skills and levels of experience nurtures an unpredictable creative process capable of generating new insights.

The journey opened symbolically with a launch event on 24 November at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Politecnico di Milano, held as part of the initiatives marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The event - which brought together scholars, professionals, and institutional figures - highlighted the importance of a shared public dialogue on the images, languages, and narratives that shape femininity in today’s society. Reflecting on archetypes and stereotypes thus became both a cultural and ethical act, contributing to broader efforts toward awareness, responsibility, and the rejection of all forms of symbolic and material violence.

The project will culminate in a collective exhibition at Politecnico di Milano: a constellation of works, practices, and interpretations that does not aim to define the Feminine once and for all but to reveal its many resonances. An invitation - for both viewers and creators - to unravel certainties, inhabit complexity, and continue questioning what has always spoken to us and yet evolves alongside us.

Two speakers on a stage in an industrial laboratory talk in front of a screen showing the event program, while a person works at a computer nearby.
Two people speaking with a microphone in front of a screen showing the title “Eterno Femminino – Between Archetype and Stereotype” in an industrial laboratory.
Speaker seated and talking in front of a slide titled “Women, Mothers, Goddesses: Female Metaphors in Prehistory,” with another person working at a laptop beside them in an industrial laboratory.
Speaker seated and talking in front of a slide with a group photo of women and a title about stereotypes, in an industrial laboratory.
Seated person speaking into a microphone in front of the “Eterno Femminino” event screen inside an industrial laboratory.

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