ITACA

RITUALS OF CARE
Social Project
Curated by Valentina Guidi Ottobri
At Itaca Firenze
June 2026

Rituals of Care is a participatory project conceived by VGO for Progetto Itaca Firenze, an association that since 2011 has been dedicated to promoting mental health through pathways of inclusion, psychosocial rehabilitation, and support for individuals living with psychiatric diagnoses and their families. The organization is part of the national network of Fondazione Progetto Itaca ETS, active in 19 Italian cities and committed for over twenty-five years to fostering a culture of mental health grounded in prevention, inclusion, and the reduction of stigma. Central to its mission is the belief that care extends beyond the individual and belongs to the community as a wholea shared space of relationships, listening, and belonging. Within this framework, the project is driven by a simple yet profound question: How can serenity be cultivated through small, everyday rituals? To explore this idea, VGO invited participants to create a small domestic altar, transforming it into a symbolic space dedicated to contemplation, self-reflection, and the construction of personal meaning. Through a process of imagination and making, each participant transformed an ordinary cardboard box into a sacred micro-architecture inhabited by a chosen animal guide. The lion, the turtle, the whale, the panda, and other creatures emerge as symbolic figures embodying qualities to be nurtured in daily life: courage, patience, gentleness, strength, trust, and resilience. No longer simple objects, these intimate temples become poetic reminders of the inner resources that each individual carries within. The anthropologist Ernesto De Martino described ritual as a cultural device capable of restoring presence. Drawing upon this perspective, Rituals of Care moves beyond the creation of an object and proposes the activation of a practice. The project invites participants to establish a space in which to pause, reconnect with themselves, and cultivate a more compassionate relationship with their own emotional landscape. Each temple becomes an intimate geography of care a site where vulnerability may be transformed into strength, where imagination becomes a tool for healing, and where everyday gestures are elevated into acts of connection, presence, and belonging within the wider world.