Art
art scene •
Alice Visentin, the art pirate
“In recent years, gossip has increasingly become a way of working. I’m interested in it not so much as a form of malicious curiosity, but as a means of transmission. After all, every story comes about because someone told it to someone else.” Interview
Portrait by Magda Antoniazzi (featuring a caterpillar)
First name and surname: Alice Visentin
Place and year of birth: Castellamonte, 1993
Related galleries and social media links: https://giomarconi.com/en/artist/alice-visentin2
The interview
What are you working on?
I am currently working on my doctoral research project, in which I am investigating gossip and the concept of ‘small history’ as tools for the production of knowledge and collective imagination. I am interested in gossip not in its negative sense as mere idle chatter, but as a relational and prosocial practice: a space in which, through the exchange between two or more people, desires, wonders, doubts and uncertainties emerge. It is precisely in its informal, everyday dimension that gossip can create ‘liberated zones’ in which new narratives can take shape. I am interested in the way in which these small narrative acts forge bonds, produce memory and generate interpretations of the world.
The gossip under examination is therefore a practice capable of opening up spaces for resistance. Through it, I aim to recognise the value of those marginal forms of communication and those alternative stories that are often excluded from official narratives. From this perspective, gossip becomes a critical tool for challenging the hierarchies of knowledge and broadening what we consider worthy of being heard, remembered and passed on.
This research takes shape through performance, installations and painting that explore narrative, voice and the collective construction of meaning. On 19 July, "The Fable of Mia" was staged at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, a performance produced by ICI London and curated by Ben Broome. For this occasion, the artist collaborated with Verity Coward and Magda Antoniazzi; the latter composed an original score for synthesiser and tape deck. The performance unfolds as a story in three chapters, in which theatrical and cinematic elements intertwine to explore the boundary between fiction, memory and oral tradition.
The performance “The Fable of Mia” came about as follows: “Last summer, whilst staying in Frassinetto Canavese, a group of friends and I spent several days drawing, cutting out, gluing and reassembling over ninety metres of paper, inventing a story together centred on Mia, my grandmother’s dog.”
Mia, a small dog who arrived from southern Italy thanks to the ‘staffetta’ – the network of volunteers who transport adopted dogs from one region to another – has a largely unknown past. It is precisely this lack of information that has become the starting point for the performance: through collective imagination, gossip, fanciful hypotheses and irony, her biography can be reinvented.
What are your visual and theoretical references?
I am interested in media archaeology and technological tools that have been largely forgotten by history, Annie Ernaux, illiteracy and social biographies, Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl. I am interested in misunderstandings and theories of conflict resolution, and in the creation of temporary working groups that allow us to escape the algorithm. I am interested in diary-style methods of storytelling and all those artistic tools that allow me to combine multiple levels of reality. I am interested in what is lost in translation, and I have a keen interest in scraps and waste, mark-making and flowers.
Your work often reflects a very strong connection with nature. What can plants, animals and landscapes teach us today?
In the foothills of the Canavese valleys, where I grew up, I was the only child in the village. Nature and animals were my playmates; I made up stories with them, and at night they made me feel a little scared. I hope that nature will regain the upper hand over human beings as soon as possible.
The work that best embodies this approach to nature is "Banda di fiori (Notturno)", which was subsequently acquired for the Rivoli Castle collection. The series consists of paintings conceived to explore the secret life of flowers at night. During the Covid pandemic, she imagined that at night the plants whispered to one another and that, together with them, insects and tiny creatures might hold gatherings or raves amongst the petals and leaves. In the paintings, the flowers become almost like little oracles: at first glance, the viewer sees individual flowers, but upon closer inspection, micro-stories and dialogues emerge.
Thus, even the natural world becomes a place where stories are passed on. I am interested in imagining these whispers as a sort of plant-based gossip: an invisible network of communication, exchange and knowledge which, fortunately, eludes our perception but which might reveal another way of being together. Gossip, understood not as mere idle chatter but as a practice of attentiveness and a form of critical knowledge, becomes a lens through which to imagine the social life of plants as well: a web of relationships, hidden languages and invisible exchanges.
When I paint, I attempt to give space to what normally remains invisible. As a child, nature taught me that there are subtle traces, secret connections and mysterious forms of communication.
What is the role of art today?
In my own personal case, art makes me feel like a female pirate. I can use my imagination and share it with the people around me.
For example, I was recently invited to the Walk&Talk Biennale in the Azores. Together with my colleagues Julia Coronel and Ilaria Quaglia, we spent several days on the island of São Miguel researching the life of Madre Margarida do Apocalipse, an Azorean cloistered nun and author of "Arcano Místico", an extraordinary work comprising more than ten thousand small figures made from bread, resin, shells and natural pigments gathered on the island, in which she depicted what she remembered of the world outside the cloistered convent.
The research involved cross-referencing gossip and documents; stories and long hours spent in the archives, but also shared imagination. Mother Margarida dedicated her life to a monumental work of devotion, yet chose to portray herself as a tiny presence within her own creation: a humble, almost invisible signature of her kneeling, holding her red heart in her hand. This research culminated in *Arcano Mistico*, a performance-installation featuring a wandering robotic nun. The project constitutes both a tribute to a forgotten figure and a continued exploration of the generative power of gossip and imagination.
The construction of a robotic nun also enabled me to collaborate with the Department of Robotics at the University of Lisbon. It was astonishing to see how the code that governed the movements of the robotic nun became a new kind of magic formula: secret linguistic devices capable of transforming an abstract idea into a body that acts within space. In this sense, technology too becomes another form of transmission: a language which, like gossip, passes from one person to another and produces new possibilities for imagining the world. (https://2025.walktalkazores.org/en/participants/alice-visentin/)
What does an artist’s studio mean to you?
The artist’s studio I envisage is a large building dedicated to housing the studios of many artists together. This is what I experienced in London during my residency at Gasworks (https://www.gasworks.org.uk/residencies/alice-visentin/), where shared spaces and time came together in the communal kitchen.
At the moment I travel extensively and my work takes shape in different places, depending on where I am; I find this rewarding, and each piece draws inspiration from the place where it is created. For me, it’s a way of escaping the algorithm. Nonetheless, I think of my studio in Turin with a certain sense of regret, because for several years now, together with other colleagues, we have been trying to secure a shared space in Turin for all of us.
Turin’s art scene is extremely vibrant, but it is regrettable that practitioners are scattered across the city, fragmented and isolated. The establishment of a shared building—a space to meet, create, exchange ideas and share resources—would make the artistic community more vibrant, much stronger and, as a result, would make the art scene itself even more electrifying.
In any case, having a studio still really excites me; for example, one of the latest works I’ve developed is the video "Have a Good Time Club Coco" (digital video, colour, sound, 12’’ looped, 2026). In that instance, the studio became a set and my works became objects with which to interact. Together with some friends, we played with blurred boundaries and DIY (do-it-yourself) ambiguity, blending aesthetics and experimenting live. For me, the editing process was a game in which I felt truly free, experimenting with frame-fragments as if they were paintings, where I could mix our voices, little stories, recorded sounds, image cut-outs and coloured filters. (Have a good time Club Coco)
How do you manage to make painting something that seems to be constantly changing?
When you say “constantly transforming”, it brings to mind my ever-growing interest in moving images. I am fascinated by the way in which analogue tools – such as optical instruments and pre-cinema devices – manage to bring drawings to life, and then blend them with more modern tools, such as video cameras and digital projectors. So, starting from drawing to create a crossroads of references, transformations and translations.
Ultimately, I aim to apply to images the same dynamic process that gossip applies to stories. A piece of gossip never remains exactly the same: it passes from person to person, changes, is enriched with details, forgets some things and invents others. I am interested in the idea that images can behave in the same way. They should never be definitive, but should continue to transform every time they are recounted, projected, redrawn or illuminated by lights and projections.
Many of the stories I draw upon arrive in precisely this form: oral accounts, intuitions, local legends, fragments of memory, forgotten customs or lives of which only a few traces remain. Through drawing and optical devices, I try to give them a new lease of life, transforming them into images that do not fix a truth, but continue to generate new narrative possibilities. I like to think that my work does not merely illustrate a story, but extends its transmission. These tools help me to elevate all of this to the level of a fairy tale.
I was recently invited to run the Collective Imagination Workshop for children at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, a project that represents a natural extension of my artistic practice. I envisaged the workshop as a space where collective imagination becomes a tool for generating possible worlds, placing the shared creative process at its heart.
Together, we created an analogue film by developing drawings, sets, characters and narratives which, as they intertwined, gave rise to a shared visual language. The workshop thus became a space for experimentation and collective storytelling, where every gesture and every contribution became part of a broader, ever-changing image.
The materials, stories and figures that emerged during the meetings will form part of a future performance comprising films, screenings, images and performers.
How is your day organised?
I do not have a set routine and I travel so often that I am at my home in Turin for less than a week a month. To help me remember, I am writing a series of short stories called "Svegliarmi nelle case", in which I describe what it is like to wake up in different homes.
I am posting an extract here and hope to be able to publish all my properties soon.
Waking up in my flat in the city. Mornings in Turin are made up of horizons seen from the fourth floor; the rooftops framing the sky from my flat. I’m just as happy when I wake up and the sky is already light as I am when dawn hasn’t yet broken. I read, listen to soft music, make myself a coffee, and the sound of the kettle doesn’t bother me. I greet the orchid Alex gave me and am amazed at how well it’s thriving; I feel the silence around me and sometimes hear the tram in the distance. Down below, the streets are teeming with people hobbling about; it’s dirty and sketchy. But inside, everything is white and the mirrors reflect the light: everything is calm and peaceful, with the beans soaking on the table.
I have often dreamt that my homes would expand into rooms I had never seen before: I remember in particular the little house in Bologna which, at night, my dreams would expand into marvellous living rooms, additional bedrooms with mirrors, terraces and balconies.
Waking up in the house in Stokewell, where I had a garden and a large glass door that opened with a diagonal swing. I slept for many months in a single bed. I was very fond of the few possessions I had with me, including a book by Doris Lessing, a hairband, four identical COS T-shirts, a pair of black North Face trousers and my favourite perfume, which smells of a church. I shared it with artist friends from all over the world: Nadia from El Salvador, Odur from Uganda, Riar from Indonesia and Kathy from Korea. The kitchen became the place where different habits came together, and it was almost always tidy. It was a Victorian terraced house, at the end of a cul-de-sac in the Portuguese neighbourhood in south London. Her routine included plaiting her hair into two small plaits on either side of her face before leaving the house, visiting Vauxhall Market on Sunday mornings, and photographing the magnolias and cherry blossoms when spring arrived. I baked a lot of raisin bread. I’d organise parties at home and invite all my friends over to make pizza with me. I cried a lot and have bittersweet memories of those times; early in the morning I’d attend a yoga class and met some wonderful people who changed my life.
How did you get started as an artist?
When she moved to the city from the countryside, she worked as a cleaner to pay her rent and fund her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin. Together with her classmates, she established a space to host exhibitions, and subsequently worked as an assistant to Anna Boghiguian, who taught her to see the world from a different perspective. Thereafter, she took a studio, which can be viewed in a video produced by Elena D’Angelo, Davide Daninos and Jacopo Menzani. (https://www.in-studio.net/alice-visentin).
Subsequently, she lived in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2022; in 2023 she was a fellow at the AAR in Rome (https://www.aarome.org/people/italian-fellows/alice-visentin); and later at Gasworks in London in 2024.
I am currently studying and conducting research at the Warburg Institute in London. From October, I will be taking up a visiting research post at Central Saint Martins for several months. I am in good form, and the city keeps me very busy; I have not had a moment’s rest and I hope to remain for as long as possible.
How does your work change when you come into contact with memories and lives that are not your own?
In recent years, partly thanks to my doctoral research, gossip has increasingly become a working method. I am interested in it not so much as a form of malicious curiosity, but as a means of transmission: a way of gathering, circulating and transforming information. After all, every story comes into being because someone told it to someone else. A story is a rumour, and a rumour is an oral narrative that Western culture has often relegated to the margins, despite it being one of the main tools through which communities have been built and defined themselves.
Gossip is profoundly collective in nature: it passes from mouth to mouth, changes, incorporates details, omits others and invents new ones. It does not claim to be an absolute truth, but it reveals shared desires, fears, conflicts and imaginaries. This is why I am interested in it as a method in my artistic practice. It allows me to work with what eludes official archives, with those minor narratives that survive only because they continue to be told. Every person I meet is part of this chain of transmission.
This is why I love setting up temporary working groups where we can experiment with collective autonomy, where everyone brings their own specific and unique experience to the rest of the group to create a melting pot of aesthetics and lived experiences. For me, it is a post-algorithmic opportunity to allow myself the unexpected.
Over time, she has become braver; previously, she was afraid to step outside the confines of her chosen medium, format, and technique, because that is how she had been taught. Now she feels she can absorb a thousand new techniques from everyone she meets; she can listen to their stories and blend them with her own.
For example, together with Mattia Splendore, I created "They Sang To Teach Us All", a soundscape dedicated to Italian folklore that came about whilst on holiday together in Frassinetto; the project stemmed from both Mattia’s and my own enthusiasm for coming from the same remote parts of the Canavese region. I recall the day we followed the village band with a tape recorder during the procession of the priors, and from those recordings we pieced together archive sounds from both my collection and his.
Working with Mattia also meant relying on each other’s expertise: I knew nothing about working with audio, and seeing the sound take shape filled me with enthusiasm. It was later posted online on Radio Alhara, and hundreds of people wrote to us to listen to it. (https://soundcloud.com/alicevisentin/they-sang-to-teach-us-all)
The works
