Interview Directory 

ART

Name: Marinella Senatore

Occupation: Italian born multidisciplinary artist with training in music, visual arts and cinema-based illustrator, painter, artist, graphic designer, and author.

She uses vernacular language forms such as pop culture, dance, music, mass events and activism. The School of Narrative Dance (SOND) was founded in 2012.

"The main concern is undoubtedly to play a social role and therefore to put materials, products, artefacts, objects and experiences into the world that must be meaningful to people."

You are the second artist selected by Baden Baden Art Meet City. Can you tell us how the project with the city of Baden-Baden came about?

I was contacted by the two curators, Thomas Korrer and Florian Metz, and by the award organisation. It's a wonderful project because it gives you the opportunity to create works from scratch that [in this case] can interact with the Kurhaus and the whole area where the casino is located, and also with the park, which is very busy, especially in the summer. For me it was absolutely fantastic to do a completely new job in Germany, where I lived but not in this part of Germany. 

I knew the curators and went there for a viewing, and it was immediately clear to all of us that I was obviously the right person with the right concepts, because they wanted a work that had to do with the community.

Can you talk to me about your inspiration?

We wanted works that could be activated and at the same time activate the audience. The dance floor is basically a stage that they wanted to give to the clubs, but also to the people who wanted to use it to express themselves during the summer. 

Then there was a work I had already created in another version, "Bodies in Alliance", which is a monument to citizenship, to the citizens here and now. I created one specifically for one of the squares in the park, and it can be activated by people because they can walk or climb on it and have their moment in the spotlight that way. And then there is the big façade of the Kurhaus, more than thirty running metres, more than nine thousand LED bulbs: something of really big scale. This was a kind of energy activator, a catalyst that fitted perfectly and did not obscure the view of the architecture below. And above all, it created a kind of square in front of the Kurhaus and the casino. And that was exactly the sense I wanted, and it worked perfectly.

For the texts, I worked with local schools. The city is very well known as a spa town. And I found it fascinating how many and how good people, even older people, decided to experience such a quiet and beautiful town, which I found really exciting, with an important charm.

I really liked that primary school pupils were involved, so it really belonged to them. They even chose the sentences we recorded. It was nice also because we brought different generations together.

Your works evoke many emotions in the viewers. What do you want to express with them and what are your main concerns as an artist?

The main concern is undoubtedly to play a social role and therefore to put materials, products, artefacts, objects and experiences into the world that must be meaningful to people. I have been involved in participatory art and community-based projects that have a strong social commitment for more than fifteen years (I have been working as an artist for twenty years). So I have a lot of experience in this field, and it is certainly no longer just a methodology, but it is also and above all the theoretical focus, because participation is a very complex thing. Also the concept of community is not a small thing, and I think that in contemporary art there will be much more talk about the involvement of the audience in the artwork, about activation and participation.

Baden Baden is one of the most beautiful cities in Germany and a well-known spa town. Did you enjoy the city and how often have you been there?

I liked it very much. It is a Germany that I know less well from a professional and personal point of view, having lived in Berlin and Dresden, which for me represent a different dimension of Germany.

I liked Baden Baden very much. I visited the city extensively and in detail because I wanted to understand how my intervention could enter into dialogue with its history, but above all with its social fabric.

How did your artistic journey begin?

It was the most natural thing in my life. I have always drawn, I have always looked at the world through the eyes of an artist. I have a multidisciplinary background, because I studied not only contemporary and classical art, but also classical music (I studied violin at the Conservatory) and film at the National Film School (formerly the Experimental Centre for Cinematography in Rome). I worked in all these fields and that helped me a lot. And then I taught for many years at Italian and foreign universities. For me, teaching is very important because it helps me understand many things about the processes that I then trigger in the participants.

Marinella Senatore - Assembly - 2021 - ©Hektor FOIfilm - Courtesy Mazzoleni, London - Torino

Marinella Senatore - Bodies in Alliance-2021- Berlinische Galerie, Berlin - ©S. Volz

Courtesy Mazzoleni, London - Torino