Apnea, a project by

Roberto Ducoli

[a few questions]

How did your story begin?
The story of Il papavero blu was born from the encounter between two complementary visions: imagination and matter, line and earth.
We combine a free graphic language, at times surreal, traversed by zoomorphic forms and instinctive suggestions, with a tangible expertise in the care and construction of natural space.
Everything begins with a drawing, with a vision that opens up unexpected possibilities and seeks to give form to what remains suspended between dream and nature.
The aspiration that drives our work is “logotherapy,” a free-flowing dialogue that takes shape and meaning when art and technique come into relation.

Who are the people who have most inspired you artistically and professionally?
In the artistic field, I have been deeply inspired by several contemporary artists and others beyond that sphere. Among them, Ericailcane stands out: his surreal and symbol-rich style struck me for his ability to tell stories through anthropomorphic animals and visionary atmospheres. Another major influence is Marco Mazzoni, whose meticulous illustrations, often created with colored pencils, build worlds suspended between nature, myth, and visual delicacy.
Matteo Masini is also a source of inspiration for me, for his personal approach to drawing and visual storytelling. Finally, I cannot fail to mention Hayao Miyazaki, the master of Japanese animation, who is able to create poetic worlds in which fantasy, nature, and emotion are deeply intertwined.
These artists, despite their different languages, share the ability to transform imagination into powerful images, shaping and stimulating the way I think about and create art.

How does nature inspire your projects and lifestyle?
For us, nature is not merely a source of aesthetic inspiration, but a guiding principle. It is a complex, harmonious and imperfect system that teaches us balance, patience, and perpetual transformation.
By observing the growth of a plant, the adaptation of a root, or the shape of a branch shaped by the wind, we understand that every element responds to a deep necessity. This awareness guides the way we design: we do not impose forms, but instead seek to listen to the place, its rhythms, and its identity.
Nature inspires our formal language through organic structures, zoomorphic references, and dynamics of growth and metamorphosis. At the same time, it appeals to our sense of aesthetics and to the care we bring to what we create.

Is there a recurring dream—or idea—that returns throughout your work?
The desire to astonish and, at the same time, to be astonished is the idea that consistently recurs in our work.
Our research emerges from a dimension that could be described as dreamlike and instinctive, a creative drive that moves beyond the ordinary and does not allow itself to be constrained by “ratio”, reminding us that imagination can still generate wonder.
Our recurring dream is to create works that open passages, that interrupt the habits of the gaze. Each project is conceived as an experience that can be traversed and inhabited, in which the viewer can enter without feeling led toward a single interpretation. We believe that art should not impose itself, nor assert itself as an absolute truth. On the contrary, it must leave space—space for doubt, for projection, for the viewer’s personal memory.

Is there a fictional or fantastical scenario that reflects your artistic imagination?
Rather than a fantastical scenario, it is a suspended place—an inner, personal space that allows us to wander and drift in a dimension we like to describe as therapeutic and intimate, where reality slows down and time dissolves. There, within the vastness of the mind’s fascinating activity, consciousness shifts state and draws us into a duality of depth and lightness.

At Orticolario 2026.
What emotions or feeling you hope people experience when they encounter your work?
The viewer is transported into another dimension, suspended between dream and reality. The work embrace, and the beams of light filtering through guide the gaze toward the central sculpture, an unreachable focal point—almost tangible, yet impossible to touch. Every detail creates a sense of depth and disorientation: one feels muffled, gently touched, immersed in a suspended environment. The perception can be light and poetic, or unsettling, almost like a nightmare, leaving the viewer free to interpret the experience according to their own emotions and imagination

If your project were music, what would it be?
Elegy for the Arctic by Ludovico Einaudi. A handful of piano notes—slow, sparse, and suspended—emerge from silence as if they were rising from an unseen depth. It is not music that leads, but music that envelops: creating a sense of suspension, of time stretched and softened, as if one were immersed in a fluid, muffled space.

Five words that you closely associate with the concepts of dream and illusion
Evanescent, suspended, ethereal, abyssal, floating.

[BIO]

Roberto Ducoli was born in Erba in 1976.

Since 1996, he has been a founder and partner of Il papavero blu, a studio that designs and creates gardens, installations, and floral events.

Over the years, Il papavero blu has taken part in Orticolario with various installations and creative spaces. Among the most recent are Musa Ventosa (2019), Infantia Mors Fabula (2022), and Amniotico (2023).

“Each project is conceived as an experience that can be traversed and inhabited, in which the viewer can enter without feeling led toward a single interpretation. We believe that art should not impose itself, nor assert itself as an absolute truth. On the contrary, it must leave space—space for doubt, projection, and the viewer’s personal memory.

Apnea, a project by

Roberto Ducoli

[a few questions]

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