Sexuality has long been a subject of careful discussion at Ombre e Luci—especially when it comes to the intimate and emotional lives of people with disabilities. A persistent myth holds that physical or cognitive disability cannot coexist with eroticism and desire, as if disabled people were somehow beyond sexuality altogether. Armanda Salvucci, president of the association "Nessuno Tocchi Mario," created Sensuability (a blend of sensuality and disability) to demolish this myth and challenge such stereotypes through art.
Launched in 2017, the project began with a short film and a fundraising campaign. It has since grown into a comic competition that brought together dozens of emerging artists from across Italy, alongside celebrated names like Milo Manara, Daniel Cuello, Frida Castelli, and Fabio Magnasciutti.
Two exhibitions have opened to the public so far—in July 2019 and February 2020—both held at the Casa del Cinema in Rome, under the patronage of Rome's municipal government and the Lazio regional authority.
For this second exhibition, themed "I Frankly Don't Care," participating artists reimagined some of cinema's most famous scenes—from Basic Instinct to Titanic, Call Me By Your Name, and Ghost—imagining how they might look if performed by people with disabilities. The results are irreverent, ironic, and strangely natural. There's no jarring collision between the two seemingly incompatible worlds of sexuality and disability. Some pieces are undeniably bold, but precisely because of that boldness they work—prompting hard reflection on the prejudices that surround both realities.
In this sense, Armanda Salvucci's experiment succeeds. The only shortcoming lies in the somewhat cramped space of the Casa del Cinema, which undercuts the breathing room that such a vital artistic initiative deserves.
What matters, as Salvucci herself emphasizes, is not to provide easy answers but to pose urgent questions about a reality often misunderstood because it seems distant and uncomfortable. We must keep working to close that distance. The Sensuability project—which will continue in other venues and contexts—seems equal to the task.