The day of my graduation, when I cast myself in plaster bandages and braces.

Milan. It’s 48 hours before graduation day, and I’m on my way to pick up the wheelchair I rented, the one my friend will use to transport me to the university for the graduation day, since soon I’ll be completely immobilized from head to foot with a medical body cast made of plaster and braces.

While rehearsing my final presentation, my hands are shaking. I’m not nervous about the speech, I’m nervous about the act itself: how people will react, whether my professors will believe it, or if it will all look like a stupid joke. Only my girlfriend and my friend, the one who’s going to push the wheelchair through the campus and the metro know it’s all a performance.

I hope the body cast will look real enough that no one will doubt it. I ordered only professional hospital materials: a cervical collar, arm and ankle braces, and plaster bandages. I even downloaded medical guides on how to plaster properly, the names of fractures, the right angles for the limbs.

I was literally going to become a sculpture for my presentation.

When I finished my three-year degree in sculpture in Palermo, I didn’t want to continue the academy. But when my father died in 2013, I was 23, and I remembered how much he wanted me to finish my studies, to get that “final piece of paper”. So, after he passed, I applied to one of Italy’s most important art academies, the Brera Academy in Milan. I chose Product Design, something more technical, less “artsy.” I thought he would have preferred that to me just doing “visual art.”

Surprisingly, I enjoyed design management. But I was too much of an artist for that world. My professor started calling me “The Artist” every time he wanted my opinion on something visual or art history. My landscape design professor loved talking to me, deep down, he was an artist too. We would spend hours after class discussing the revolutionary performance art from the ’60s and Pink Floyd.

With this final performance, me, completely covered in plaster, I felt like I was finally embodying the sculptor I hadn’t been allowed to be during my master’s. After two years of 3D modeling, computer graphics and brand identity design, the sculptor trapped inside me finally broke out, dramatically, in the form of total mummification. On graduation day, I became the sculpture I could never make.

My thesis was about psychological design, how physical and mental limitations reflect one another, how we can train ourselves to endure discomfort and how can we design our lives around it. I wanted to explore that physically too, first hand.

While my friend soaked the plaster bandages and wrapped them carefully around my arms, I guided them using the hospital manual I’d downloaded. My girlfriend was filming everything. Within minutes, the plaster started to heat up and harden, my arms were turning to stone.

They both were working on my leg when I suddenly felt an urgent need to pee. I imagined the awkward scene of my friend and girlfriend helping me in the bathroom, no, no, I had to do it myself.

When the plaster was solid enough, I said, “I’ll go alone. Don’t help me.”They looked at me, then at each other, and burst out laughing.“How exactly are you going to do that?”

My arms and one leg were already plastered, but I could still move my shoulders. I stood up, moving like the first generation AI-powered robot, and shuffled toward the bathroom. I closed the door behind me with my head while they watched, mouths open.

A minute later, THUD!

They ran to the door, opened it, and found me stiff as a board, diagonally wedged across the tiny bathroom, my head in the sink, my leg pointing at the toilet. I had slipped on a few drops of water. I looked like a sculpture that had just fallen off its pedestal. They had to lift me back up, carefully, like handling a museum piece.

When they finally finished plastering me, it was night. They were exhausted. I, on the other hand, was thrilled, admiring their “craftsmanship.”Before going to bed, I tried on all the final details: the neck brace, ankle supports, shoes, suit, and wheelchair. I’d even bought a suit one size bigger to fit over the plaster.

Everything was perfect. I turned the wheelchair toward the mirror.

I looked very credible.All the effort was worth it.

For a second, I almost said out loud, “My dad would be proud…”Then I stopped myself and laughed.“Well,” I thought, “maybe not this time.”

Graduation Day

It’s morning. Someone’s knocking on my door.I forget I’m completely plastered, turn too fast, and boom, I fall off the bed.Crack! The plaster on my arm dents. Pain shoots through my body as if I’d actually survived a car crash the night before.

I roll, crawl, and somehow pull myself up by grabbing the chair and desk, then open the door. My friend and girlfriend are standing there, staring.

“Did you just wake up?” “Yes,” I mumble. “You guys woke me up!”

“We need to get you dressed or we’ll be late for your presentation!”

“Wait,” I say. “We need to fix this dent in my arm plaster, I fell trying to open the door.”

While my friend soaks a fresh plaster bandage in water, my girlfriend tries to pull up my pants. “I hope it dries before we put on the shirt!” I say. Another layer of plaster goes on. My friend blasts it with a hair dryer while I rehearse my thesis.

Then I’m dressed, suit, shirt, everything in place. I roll into my wheelchair, heart pounding. I’m excited, terrified, absurdly proud.

We rush across the campus. The gatekeeper, seeing me like this for the first time, yells, “Hey! What happened to you?” I smile: “I’ll tell you later. I’ll be fine!”

Outside, it’s cold. My arms and feet are freezing. We get to the bus stop. The driver helps lift me in, secures my wheelchair. My girlfriend films, my friend looks dead serious, pushing me like a medic in a war movie.

At the metro, we try the wheelchair lift, it actually works! Everything’s smooth, but my stomach feels like it’s folding in on itself. Nerves, adrenaline, hunger, all mixed.

We enter the academy quietly, trying not to attract attention. But as we reach the main hall, the presentations have already started.

Then someone spots me. One of my classmates jumps up: “Andrea! Oh my God!” Within seconds, professors and students surround me.

Fuck, I think. Now I’m in the eye of the storm.

A circle forms around my wheelchair. My girlfriend films the reactions, we planned that part. The crowd keeps growing, everyone wanting to hear what happened.

I’d never been this popular before.

One professor touches the plaster on my leg. “My God, how did it happen?” So I tell him, straight face, that a black Mercedes ran a red light and hit me while I was crossing the street. Everyone gasps.

When the excitement settles, they push me into the hall and make space for me like I’m some kind of saint. I feel like the Pope — people touch my plastered feet and arms like they’re holy relics.

Today, I am a holy martyr of design.

Then my name is called. My friend pushes me to the stage. My laptop is connected. Copies of my thesis are handed to the professors.

And there I am, presenting, calmly, clearly, completely wrapped in plaster. No stage fright. Just pure focus.

When I finish, my landscape design professor speaks first. He praises the research work and asks about the connection between my previous performances, the avant-garde of the ’60s and today's role of product design, in the context of the body limits.

I answer: “I think product design, in the end, is about comfort, about protecting the body. We rarely realize how precious our body is until it stops working properly. Losing mobility changes everything. The same way, being away from home too long makes us long for it. Our home is an extension of our body, and our body is a temple. Something sacred we only value when it’s broken.”

Applause. Handshakes. “Bravo!” from the audience. Tears rise in my eyes, part exhaustion, part emotion, part the sheer pain of sitting in plaster for hours.

I just hope they forgive me when they find out.

Outside, we celebrate with prosecco and chips. But I’m freezing. My face is white as marble. My girlfriend and friend take me to a nearby restaurant so I can eat something warm and rest.

I spend the whole day in the cast, still performing, until evening, when I finally break free. It feels like cracking open an Easter egg. Relief floods in. I feel light, alive, reborn.

A few days later, I’m walking down a street in Milan when my professor spots me.

“What happened to your casts?!” he asks, shocked.

 I shrug. “Ah… they took them off. It was part of the thesis.”

 He laughs, shakes his head, and says:

 “Oh, Andrea… that’s unacceptable!”