A Nervous System
Reprogramming (2021) emerges from a sustained experience of verbal conditioning and the gradual recognition of its effects on the body. The work reflects on the repeated use of the word “bitch” as a disciplinary tool—often deployed in moments when authority is challenged, when a woman speaks back, questions, or asserts knowledge. Over time, such language detaches from its origin and becomes internalized, operating as a form of self-regulation.
The performance takes place in an empty, white-walled room. A single blackboard is positioned at the center. The artist approaches the board with a piece of chalk and writes the phrase: “You’re a bitch.” She pauses, then erases it. The action is repeated—write, erase, write, erase—until the chalk is reduced to dust. The gesture is mechanical but accumulative, mirroring the repetition through which language is learned and reinforced.
A second piece of chalk is then introduced. This time, the phrase changes: “You’re wise.” Instead of erasing, the artist writes continuously, allowing the words to build upon one another until the surface of the board is almost entirely covered. Legibility dissolves into density; the act of writing becomes less about communication and more about inscription, layering, and reinforcement.
The work operates between video and score. While documented as a singular performance, it is also conceived as an open structure—an instruction that can be repeated by others. In this sense, Reprogramming aligns with the logic of event-based practices, in which a simple set of actions generates both a personal and collective experience.
At its core, the piece considers the relationship between language and embodiment. If language can be internalized through repetition, it can also be restructured through it. The blackboard, often associated with early education and discipline, becomes a site of reversal: a place where imposed narratives are first exhausted, then replaced by chosen ones.
The work proposes that identity is not only shaped by external forces, but can be actively rewritten. Through the physical acts of writing, erasing, and layering, Reprogramming frames transformation not as a singular moment, but as a process—one that requires time, repetition, and conscious intervention.
Reprogramming (Score)
Walk to the chalkboard.
Take a piece of chalk.
Write a phrase that has been imposed on you—
something you no longer wish to believe.
Erase the phrase.
Repeat: write, erase, write, erase,
until the chalk runs out.
Erase the board completely.
Take a new piece of chalk.
Write the words you choose to believe—
words that define who you are or who you are becoming.
Repeat the phrase continuously.
Allow the words to accumulate.
Continue until the surface is filled.
Alpha
Alpha explores language as a structure of power—how it is learned, imposed, and embodied.
The work draws from early experiences of speech and silence. As a child, I had a speech impediment, confusing letters such as b and d, and underwent language therapy in which communication was mediated through glass, headphones, and repetition. Around the age of eight, I became selectively mute, speaking only in controlled or private situations. These experiences revealed language not as a neutral tool, but as something that governs who is heard and who is not.
The alphabet—often understood as a foundational system of communication—is treated here as unstable and constructed. Though it appears fixed, its order is arbitrary, and its global dominance is tied to histories of colonial and patriarchal power. Terms such as alpha, beta, gamma, and delta further expose how language is used to organize hierarchy and authority.
This instability is explored through a series of mirrored, body-scale Greek letters—Α, Β, Γ, Δ—installed out of sequence. Their reflective surfaces shift the locus of authority: rather than inheriting a position within a predefined order, the viewer is implicated in constructing meaning. The “alpha” is no longer fixed, but self-defined.
Other works in the series engage miscommunication and slippage in language. A reference to The Medium is the Massage highlights how error—originally a typesetting mistake—can generate new meanings, suggesting that language is always contingent and open to reinterpretation. This idea is extended through a series of spatial installations in which the words message, mess age, mass age, and massage are repeated, fragmented, and reconfigured across surfaces.
In one installation, the words are printed directly onto the walls, ceiling, and floor, surrounding the viewer in a total field of language. The repetition shifts in scale, spacing, and orientation, destabilizing legibility and collapsing distinctions between reading and inhabiting. Language becomes environmental—no longer something one observes, but something one moves through.
In another, the same words appear as projected light within a darkened space. They drift, overlap, and dissolve across architectural surfaces and bodies, refusing to settle into a single, fixed meaning. Fragments emerge and disappear—mess, mass, age—producing a constant slippage between coherence and breakdown. Here, language is temporal and unstable, shaped by perception and duration.
The project also includes a series of silk tapestries based on the Italian alphabet, which notably excludes letters such as J, the first letter of my name. This absence reflects a personal and cultural dislocation between Italian heritage and Canadian identity. Inspired by Alighiero Boetti, these works are produced in collaboration with In-Presa, supporting young adults through artisanal training. Unlike Boetti’s delegated authorship, this collaboration emphasizes both material production and social structure.
Across the series, language is treated not only as a system of communication, but as a site of tension—between voice and silence, control and resistance, structure and instability. Alpha asks how these systems might be reordered, and what it means to reclaim authorship within them.