Marzia Migliora
About the Artist
Migliora (born in Alessandria, 1972) employs a wide range of media, including photography, video, sound, performance, installation, and drawing.
Recurring themes in her work include memory as a tool for investigating the present and analyzing labor dynamics, both individually and collectively. Over thirty years, she has explored the human dynamics leading to the capitalist paradoxes of industrial production as an extractive and divisive force within communities. Her work has consistently sought to reshape a more collective imagination, focusing on minorities and their demands while overturning social and political inconsistencies through diverse visual approaches that encourage active spectator participation. In more recent years, her works have embraced a multispecies perspective, incorporating animal and plant viewpoints to contribute to new and necessary visions in times of global complexity and evolving adaptive scenarios.
59 passi
2001
Single-channel video, color, voice (Italian), 2’ 46”.
In 59 passi (59 Steps), partly for fun, partly as a challenge, the artist, the protagonist of the video, puts herself to the test by trying to walk on her tiptoes for as long as possible on a sea of glass marbles. She counts her steps out loud and eventually achieves a record of 59, hence the title of the work. Choosing her body as a medium of self-exploration, the artist develops exercises of mental and physical resistance, coping with her limits in actions reminiscent of childhood games.
Efi
2002
Video, Single-channel video, color, sound, DVD, 3’.
The Efi video is set in the Bay of Augusta, near Siracusa in Sicily, among several shipwrecks. The long take is interspersed with brief shots of the artist cleaning the deck of the Efi ship. Her actions are a paradox, an exercise performed stubbornly in conditions of the utmost precariousness, emphasised by noises and sounds apparently coming from the sunken holds.