A Milan park has become a stage for an Olympic project that invites residents to write—literally—what they believe sport represents. The effort, titled “Together to Reflect,” was designed as a collective artwork that takes shape through mirrors and messages placed outdoors in the BAM park area.
The project’s structure centers on slender stakes topped with mirrors. Park visitors are able to write their own reflections about sports and the Olympic Games, shaping the artwork as they add personal notes to the display.
Anthony Cardamone encountered the initiative after seeing it on Instagram, and he brought his wife and their 7-year-old daughter to the park on Sunday, when the event was scheduled as the only day for people to add messages. Cardamone said sport, for him, is about “being together,” sharing, and measuring one’s abilities, and he watched his daughter write the word “brave” on one of the mirrored flower-like shapes.
Other visitors described similar motivations for joining. Roberta Massaccesi said she was strolling through BAM when she noticed the mirrors, and her son asked to participate; she said the pair added a drawing expressing that sports are good for everyone. Massaccesi said it was the first time for her and him to join an Olympic event after they had gone to a hockey match together.
The project was developed by BAM and NABA, Milan’s academy of fine arts. BAM’s cultural general director Francesca Colombo said that when people think about the Olympics they often focus only on sports and medals, but she said the Games are also about values—and that art can help transmit those values through disciplines including “music, dance, ballet.”
NABA professor Chiara Vico, who helped explain how the installation works, said the mirrors enable participants to see their face as they share their thoughts. Vico said the design aims so that, at least for a moment, the written reflections and the person expressing them overlap—so “your reflection and your message become one.”
Students from NABA were among the volunteers at the installation, helping guide visitors as the mirrors accumulated written messages about what sport can mean in practice, and in community, as the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympics approach.