Marinella Senatore
VAULT spoke to Italian multidisciplinary artist Marinella Senatore, a luminary figure in the global contemporary art landscape, about her commitment to democratising creativity through her practice, and its universal relevance as a vehicle for social consciousness and connection.
Image credit: Marinella Senatore, Dior Cruise 2021, Piazza Duomo, Lecce. Photo: A. Garofalo. Courtesy the Artist and Dior
Marinella Senatore’s practice fluidly traverses boundaries between visual art, video, movement, assembly practices and academic thought, promoting socio-political dialogues through a rousing sense of collective expression and transformation.
Participation of the individual and the collective is a key aspect of your practice. How does the collaborative process enrich your art, from concept to final outcome or performance?
I have been making participatory art projects since 2006, involving entire communities in the creation of collective works. Rather than talking about participation – a term that’s often overused – I like to use the concept of ‘assembly’. That is what my practice is based on. The School of Narrative Dance (which I founded in 2012 as a means of exploring storytelling through choreographic experience) activates collectives of people by working with the idea of horizontal learning. It strongly encourages the emancipation of individuals, and their empowerment in a choral context. If my luminaries are successful worldwide it is because they are deeply rooted in a very ancestral apparatus, which offers a physically and conceptually immersive experience that transcends cultural boundaries.
At the beginning of the last century the role of luminaries was to celebrate the community, to create space for special things to happen and to foster the gathering of people. This ancient quality is very active nowadays. That’s why my luminaries are requested by many different countries and audiences across the world – despite their closeness to the festivities and celebrations we see in the south of Italy, they engage all people in a journey
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