— 09.02.2025
Technologies of care. Elisa Giardina Papa.
The Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá (MAMBO) presents Technologies of Care, the first institutional survey exhibition of Italian artist Elisa Giardina Papa in Colombia. This exhibition provides a comprehensive view of the implications of digital platforms, the lost or forgotten forms of knowledge and desire, how systems of thought condition technological practices, and the roles of gender in a constantly transforming virtual context. The exhibition highlights recent modes of precarious labor associated with digital platforms, fostering discussions about the future of technology, work, and the role that art plays in this equation.
- Elisa Giardina Papa’s work develops the tensions between the new forms of labor proposed by digital economies in the Global South.
- This exhibition covers Giardina Papa’s work from 2016 to 2022, a period during which the artist delved deeply into digital platforms. In fact, in 2019, she accepted a three-month job as a “data-cleaner” to gain an immersive experience.
- Through her work, the artist explores themes such as precarious labor, inequalities, diverse gender identities, the commodification of rest, and other elements intrinsic to human nature, as well as the power structures present in labor systems.
- With a meta-cinematic approach, the artist blends video techniques and internet aesthetics, creating a hybrid form that explores how technology shapes human interaction, labor, and intimacy in contemporary society.
- The exhibition is divided between levels -3 and -1 of the Museum, presenting works related to affect and technology on the third level, while level -1 explores, through historical archives and lyrical speculation, contemporary interpretations of women.
Technologies of Care features specific pieces in which Giardina Papa engages the digital environment to seek forms of knowledge and desire that have been lost or forgotten, disqualified, and rendered meaningless by the hegemonic demands for order and legibility. The titular work of the exhibition presents conversations the artist had with platform workers, including an ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) artist, an online dating coach, a nail designer, customer service operators, a fairy tale writer, a fetish video performer, and a social media fan.
In other works created alongside the collective Radha May or individually, Giardina Papa highlights the role of women and queer bodies in today’s society. Whether exploring their liberating and rebellious capacity or examining censorship in postwar Italian cinema, her work challenges conventional conceptions of gender stereotypes, societal expectations of women, and identity tensions in large-scale video installations, performances, and experimental films.
About the artist
Born in Palermo, Sicily, in 1979, Elisa Giardina Papa has dedicated her artistic career to understanding topics such as recurring forms of extractive capitalism and imperialism, which have strained our capacity for life and work.
Now based in New York City, her work has been exhibited and screened at prominent venues, including the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (The Milk of Dreams); the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA’s Modern Mondays); the Whitney Museum (Sunrise/Sunset Commission); Mediacity Seoul Biennale 2018; the 6th Biennial of the Moving Image in Buenos Aires, among others.
After earning her degree in Design from the Politecnico di Milano in 2007, she attended the Rhode Island School of Design, where she obtained her Master of Fine Arts in 2013. It was there that she co-founded the artistic collective Radha May. Along with Indian artist Nupur Mathur and Ugandan artist Bathsheba Okwenje, the trio continues to create performances and artistic installations that unveil hidden histories and peripheral spaces, exploring their relationship with gender, sexuality, and colonialism.
This project is made possible with the support of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Bogotá.
Credits: Riccardo Banfi
Photo by: Juan Echeverria y Esteban Suárez (2022).
Curator: Eugenio Viola: Born in Naples, Italy, he is a curator, art critic, and holds a PhD in Methods and Methodologies of Archaeological and Historical-Artistic Research from the University of Salerno. He worked as Chief Curator at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea DonnaRegina – MADRE (Naples) from 2009 to 2016. There, he was responsible for research on the museum’s collection and co-curated the first large-scale exhibitions in Italy by Boris Mikhailov, Francis Alÿs, and Daniel Buren, among others. From 2017 to 2019, he was Chief Curator at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts – PICA and is currently Chief Curator at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá – MAMBO. In 2016 and 2019, Viola was recognized as the best Italian curator by Artribune magazine. Likewise, Viola curated the Estonian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Art Biennale (Jaanus Samma, ‘NSFW- Not Suitable For Work. A Chairman’s Tale’, Palazzo Malipiero, Venice). Afterwards, it was organized at the Museum of Occupations and Freedom in Tallinn, Estonia; an exhibition listed among the 15 best exhibitions in the world in 2016 by Hyperallergic, a leading American voice in contemporary art and culture perspectives. His curatorial practice has focused on experiences and theories related to new media, performance, and bodily poetics, about which he has published various articles and given numerous lectures. His writings have been published in international media such as ArtForum, Exit Express, and Flash Art. He has worked with important artists such as Marina Abramović, Regina José Galindo, Francis Alÿs, ORLAN, Kimsooja, Carlos Martiel, Teresa Margolles, Amalia Pica, Carlos Garaicoa, and Maria José Arjona, among others. Viola was appointed Curator of the Italian Pavilion 2022 for the 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, which opened on April 23, 2022.
Curatorship: Juaniko Moreno: Curator and researcher interested in cosmotechnics, language and information, nature/culture divide, and art and sustainability projects. He holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the National University of Colombia, and a Master’s in Contemporary Art and Curatorial Studies from the China Academy of Art, in Hangzhou. He was part of the research think-tank The Terraforming 2021 at the Strelka Institute, and currently works as a professor in the Fine Arts Program at the Universidad del Bosque and as a junior curator for the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá – MAMBO.
