watercolour and leather on arches paper 76 x 56 cm
I’m Still Standing, Bozza prison, Bologna. 2026
I’m still standing @ Casa Circondariale“Rocco D’Amato” Bologna.
From February 6 to 8, 2026, as part of ART CITY Bologna 2026 during Arte Fiera, Associazione Acrobazie presents the installation: Anila Rubiku. I’m Still Standing by Italian-Albanian artist Anila Rubiku (Durrës, 1970), curated by Elisa Fulco. For the first time, contemporary art enters the “Rocco D’Amato” Prison in Bologna, transforming the prison into a place of dialogue and cultural participation.
The initiative, organized in collaboration with the management of the Dozza Prison, includes the prison within the exhibition route taking place throughout the city during Arte Fiera 2026, offering citizens an invitation to symbolically enter a threshold space between art, life, and social justice.
Inside the prison, Anila Rubiku presented four interventions distributed throughout the areas dedicated to meetings with family members and legal representatives of incarcerated people. The title, I’m Still Standing, is dedicated to the themes of resilience, hope, and second chances: the series of birds as a metaphor for the possible redemption of the feminine (Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, 2022); the drawings featuring veterans’ prosthetics that show the creative solutions adopted to remain standing (I’m Still Standing, 2019); the embroidered doors inspired by the secret doors of Milanese palaces as an emblem of second chances (The Inner Doors, 2025); and the series of abstract portraits of Albanian female prisoners composed of bars to be forced apart in order to escape a justice system molded by masculine norms that penalize women (Defiant’s Portrait, 2014).
The first Bologna event was conceived to emphasize the importance of co-designing cultural welfare initiatives with the goal of connecting the “inside” and the “outside,” fostering knowledge of museum collections and cross-sector collaboration so that art can become a driver of inclusion and social regeneration.
Curated by Elisa Fulco
Promoted by the Associazione Acrobazie
In collaboration with the “Rocco D’Amato” District Prison of Bologna.