Elisa Giardina Papa’s research-based art practice seeks forms of knowledge and desire that have been disqualified and rendered nonsensical by hegemonic demands for order and legibility. Through critical yet poetic framing, she works across large-scale video installation, experimental films, as well as ceramic and glass sculptures, to draw attention to those parts of our lives which remain radically unruly, untranslatable, and incomputable.
Her work has been exhibited and screened at the 59th Biennale di Venezia, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum, Gropius Bau, ICA London, Vienna Secession, HKW Berlin, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2018, the 6th Buenos Aires Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento, M+ Hong Kong, among others.
Giardina Papa is also a founding member of the artist collective Radha May. Together with Indian artist Nupur Mathur and Ugandan artist Bathsheba Okwenje, they develop performances and art installations that reveal hidden histories and peripheral sites, exploring their relation to gender, sexuality, and the legacies of colonialism.
Giardina Papa received an MFA from RISD, a PhD in Film, Media, and Gender Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and is an Assistant Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. She lives and works in New York and Sant’Ignazio, Sicily.