Marinella Senatore's practice encompasses film, collage, photography, installation and performance. Defined by its participatory nature, her artwork examines the potential of art and collaboration to generate broad social change.
Read MoreAcross her work, Marinella Senatore involves members of the public as a means of rethinking the political and creative potential of collective action. This has the effect of disrupting the traditional role of the artist as the sole creator of an artwork and the public as its passive audience. The screenplay for her film Speak Easy (2009), for example, was written by 1,200 citizens of Madrid, including university students, retired carpenters, seamstresses and professional actors. Drawing on the tropes of Golden Age Hollywood cinema, the film takes the form of a musical addressing the legacy of the Francoist dictatorship in Spain.
In 2012, Marinella Senatore founded The School of Narrative Dance, a free, travelling school that advocates a non-hierarchical approach to learning. With the artist, participants focus on sharing personal experiences, producing narratives that gradually build into choreography. Since its inception, the School has led projects in Berlin, Ecuador, New York, Oulu, Paris, Shenzhen, Sweden, and Venice, among others.
Many of Marinella Senatore's works also employ short sentences and phrases drawn from popular songs, manifestos and books, largely as part of protest movements. These appear in the embroidered velvet banners and jackets of 'Protest Forms: Memory and Celebration' (2018–2019), a series of eclectic works that explore forms of protest across the world.
Working with Dior for the brand's Cruise 2021 collection, Marinella Senatore engaged the southern Italian tradition of luminarie: light structures built for communal festivities. Senatore's illuminated structures, built in collaboration with luminarie designer Fratelli Parisi, were made out of 30,000 lightbulbs and featured ornate patterns and such phrases as 'Be a Builder of Unguilt' and 'The Time For Equality is Now'.
Marinella Senatore's work has been included in such international art exhibitions as the 2nd Bangkok Art Biennale and Vancouver Biennale (2020); 13th Lyon Biennale (2015); and the 54th Venice Biennale (2011). In 2021, Senatore will participate in the 34th São Paulo Biennial with a solo exhibition rising out of her collaboration with local collectives and community members.
We Rise By Lifting Others, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (2020); ZIG ZAG ZEG ZUG (with the 'E Zezi Workers Group), Laveronica Arte Contemporanea, Modica (2018); Protest Forms: Memory and Celebration (featuring Giacomo Leopardi), Villa Medici, Rome (2018); Protest Forms: Sonic Version, BAK | basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (2017); Piazza Universale/Social Stages, Queens Museum, New York (2017); Scenografia Cut Out, Peres Projects, Berlin (2015).
Protext! When fabric becomes manifesto, Centro Pecci, Prato (2020); Feminism in Italian Contemporary Art, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London (2019); Post-Water, Museo Nazionale della Montagna CAI, Turin (2019); The Street. Where the World is Made, MAXXI, Rome (2018); DO D!STURB, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2015).
Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2021
