The Italian Cultural Institute, in collaboration with the BAC-Beirut Art Center, is organizing a talk by the artist Rä di Martino.
This talk explores the ways in which Rä di Martino transforms archival footage and photographs into new narratives, remixing and reworking them to elicit fresh meanings. Through her practice, the archive becomes a vessel for storytelling—of places, histories, and imaginaries—blurring the boundaries between video art, documentary, and fiction.
It is a personal and compelling exploration of how archives can be reimagined as creative tools in contemporary moving image art. Moreover, the talk will address how contemporary art can reach wider audiences through the interplay of real-life stories and archival materials. This process of storytelling is intimately tied to the question of inclusivity and raises important issues regarding how cultural institutions might become more open and accessible to all.
BIOGRAPHY
Rä di Martino (Rome, 1975) studied at Chelsea College of Art and Slade School of Art in London, she has lived in New York, from 2005 to 2010, and she now lives and works in Rome. Her work has been shown in many institutions like Tate Modern (London); MoMA PS1 (NY); Palazzo Grassi (Venice); GAM and Fondazione Sandretto (Turin); MACRO and MAXXI (Rome); Museion (Bolzano); MCA (Chicago); Magasin (Grenoble); PAC and HangarBicocca (Milan). She has participated to a large number of film festivals like Locarno Film Festival; VIPER Basel; Transmediale.04; New York Underground Film Festival; Kasseler Dokfest; Torino Film Festival and Venice Film Festival, where she won, in 2014, the SIAE Award and Gillo Pontecorvo Award and a Nastro d’Argento with the medium length documentary The Show MAS Go On (2014). Her first feature film Controfigura (2017) was premiered at Venice Film Festival. In 2018 she has developed the project AFTERALL with the MIBAC Italian Council Award. She won the first edition of the Lio Capital Art Prize (Milan, 2020) with L’eccezione (2019), commissioned by Museo Novecento (Florence). In 2021 she filmed a documentary for ARTE, Il giardino che non c’è (inspired by Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini) and a documentary film about the history of Teatro di Pontedera (Fuori dai teatri). In 2022 opens her solo exhibition at Forte Belvedere in Florence and a solo show in collaboration with the Carmelo Bene archive. She is now developing her second feature film shot in Egypt and Lebanon. And has just opened the solo show Kant Can’t, video animation and ceramic scultures.
