A Repertoire Of Constant Restarts

A REPERTOIRE OF CONSTANT RESTARTS
curated by Basak Senova

Signs make signs: what do we do with this? Well, we do ‘as if.’ That is, we respond, we welcome it as an intention. This is what the sign asks. It operates on a background of misunderstandings. The answer gives the sign its meaning. […] What we are responding to becomes a sign.
Vinciane Despret

Cristiana de Marchi presents a body of work in her first solo exhibition in Austria, developed over the past five years. Curated by Basak Senova, the exhibition spans a range of media, including textiles, video, and performance. Through a careful and often playful re-elaboration of easily accessible materials such as litter and audiotapes, alongside meticulous creative processes like hand embroidery and knitting, de Marchi reflects on moments of historical violence, enforced censorship, and internalised trauma.

De Marchi presents an exploration of ‘absence’ through the lens of political engagement and ‘poethical’ responsiveness. Her practice reveals how meaning emerges through acts of interpretation and response, especially in contexts marked by silence, erasure, and contested histories. Drawing from her doctoral research, de Marchi reflects on the act of tracing, interrogating signs, and consciously operating “on a background of misunderstanding”.

UAE-based Italian-Lebanese visual artist and writer Cristiana de Marchi holds an MFA with honours in Archaeology from the University of Turin, Italy, and is currently pursuing a PhD in the Artistic Research Programme at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. She is a graduate of the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship (Abu Dhabi).

De Marchi’s work has been featured in ArtAsiaPacific, Artforum, Contemporary Practices, Artribune, The Art Newspaper, and Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia, among others. She has exhibited at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Mathaf, Museum of Modern Art (Qatar), Villa Romana (Italy), Sursock Museum (Lebanon), Langgeng Art Foundation (Indonesia), The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art and New York University (both USA), Villa Vassilieff (France), Sharjah Art Museum, Maraya Art Centre (both UAE), and at the Biennial of Experimental Poetry (2024), Textile Biennale (2023), Yinchuan Biennale (2016), Santa Cruz Biennale (2016), Biennale Donna (2021), Culture of Peace Biennial (2016), as well as in parallel events to the Singapore Biennial (2013) and the Istanbul Biennial (2022).

De Marchi has been an artist-in-residence at various esteemed institutions, including the Cultural Foundation, UAE (2022–2023); Serlachius Residency, Finland (2022); University of Cincinnati (2018–2019); MoCA Yinchuan, China (2016); Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (2014); Santa Fe Art Institute (2014); The University of the Arts, Philadelphia (2012); and most recently at Al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art (2024). Her work is represented in prominent collections, including the Centre Pompidou (France), MoCA Yinchuan (China), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (USA). Her poetry book, Embodying, was published by the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2016.