Cartaceo#07 at Piccolo Teatro Grassi: a performance by Andrea Pennacchi, accompanied by a collective live painting
As part of the BookCity Milano 2025 programme, the event, promoted by Burgo Group, took place before a large and engaged audience. Taking centre stage was the captivating performance of Andrea Pennacchi, also widely known as Pojana. A playwright as well as an actor, Pennacchi performed an original piece written specifically for the occasion. Come lumache sul muretto (Like Snails on the Wall) is a text of meriggiamenti – daydreaming meditations – freely inspired by Meriggiare pallido e assorto (To Laze at Noon, Pale and Thoughtful) by Eugenio Montale.
True to the distinctive character of the Cartaceo project, this edition once again brought together words and illustration. Pennacchi’s text inspired the creativity of six leading Italian illustrators : Thomas Cian, Grazia La Padula, La Tram, Martoz, Antonio Pronostico, and Elisa Talentino – artists whose work is recognised and appreciated both in Italy and abroad.
Accompanied by the guitar of Giorgio Gobbo, Andrea Pennacchi narrated, with irony and lyricism, fragments of a personal story in which printed paper and books became a space for escape, also on the sensory plane. At the same time, the six illustrators gave life, right on paper, to new visual compositions that the audience could follow as they emerged on a large screen. The live painting thus offered a vivid demonstration of paper’s role as a creative medium and a meeting ground between word and image.
The audience’s involvement
As expected, the event was fully booked, attracting theatre enthusiasts, representatives of major publishing groups, and Burgo Group clients and partners.
The entire gallery of the Piccolo was reserved for 300 students from Milan’s secondary schools, guests of BookCity Milano and Burgo Group. For them, the event provided an opportunity to reflect on and rediscover paper as a contemporary means of expression and vehicle for culture.
Everyone present received a tangible example of the remarkable aesthetic and sensory qualities of paper. Each guest was gifted with an original leporello, printed in a limited edition, featuring the text and six original illustrations created for the event. The same artworks will appear in the Burgo Group 2026 Calendar. The leporello Come lumache sul muretto was printed on Burgo SUN BRIGHT paper.
Curious to know what a leporello is?
Or would you like to find out more about the Cartaceo project? Follow our suggested reading below to explore further.
Burgo Group will take part in BookCity Milano 2025 with the Cartaceo project, now in its seventh edition.
