From September 25 to October 16, 2025, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze hosts MFA 2025, the annual end-of-year exhibition showcasing a selection of research projects by students from different Departments and Courses.

Curated by professors Domenico Antonio Mancini, Veronica Montanino, Marina Brancato, and Laura Lombardi, with the collaboration of Lucrezia Ricci, a student of the School of Artistic Curation, the exhibition presents a rich itinerary through the most significant works created during the concluding academic year. The selection was made by the curators together with two distinguished external experts: Diego Sileo, Director of the PAC in Milan, and Martino Margheri, Head of Educational Activities and Special Projects at Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.

The opening takes place on Thursday, September 25, at 4:00 pm at the historic headquarters in Via Ricasoli 66. This year, MFA will also reach beyond the Academy into the city with two free public events: thanks to the collaboration with Giunti Odeon – Bookstore and Cinema, three video works will be screened on September 29 and 30; and on October 8, the Botanical Garden of the University of Florence will host a theatrical performance inside one of its greenhouses.

At the central venue, 42 students are involved, presenting 37 works realized through a variety of expressive languages and techniques: painting, sculpture, installation, photography, illustration, artist’s book, printmaking, video, and performance.

The selected works, the curators explain, reflect a sensitivity to central themes of contemporary life:

• the body, as a starting point to question identity and the mutable forms of the self;

• the concept of dwelling, from the intimate dimension of the home to the broader scale of the city and environment, interwoven with reflections on nature as both vital and fragile, to be reconsidered in its relation to the human;

• perception, recurring as a theme, exploring the gaze, ways of observing and representing reality, and the possibility of continually redrawing the boundaries between ourselves and the world.

These thematic nuclei intertwine to create a path that reflects on mapping the self and the surrounding space as artistic practice, on the loss and redefinition of boundaries as moments of transition and choice, and finally on crisis—not as an ending, but as a necessary passage toward new possibilities.

The transience of forms and thoughts will also be emphasized through the display of selected Academy laboratories, the beating hearts of its formative and creative life. Their works-in-progress will be presented in their unfinished dimension: captured in a suspended space that frees the imagination and embraces becoming.

The exhibition is free and open to the public until October 16, Monday through Saturday, during Academy opening hours.

MFA takes place each year at the threshold between the old and the new academic cycle, which this year begins on October 20. The works, selected in collaboration with leading experts from the fields of art and culture, offer an updated perspective on the artistic production of emerging artists in training, their personal interpretations of reality, and their responses to contemporary urgencies. Each year the curatorship is entrusted to a group of internal professors. With MFA 2025, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze reaffirms itself as a place of experimentation, dialogue, and growth, offering the public the opportunity to engage with the visions and questions of young contemporary art.

MFA 2025 – Off Events

Giunti Odeon – Bookstore and Cinema
September 29–30
Free admission

Screenings:

• The Lucky Cat by Na Zhang and Daniela Luciani

• Laser Totalitarianism by Giulio Marunti

• Sometimes it’s hard to connect by Demis Rosa