BIOGRAPHY
I am an Italian-Australian artist based in Meanjin/Brisbane. My practice takes on auto-ethnographic qualities, drawing from my lived experiences of being raised in Nimbin—an over-policed, low socioeconomic community in New South Wales, Australia. From the constant gaze of 24-hour surveillance cameras to sudden police raids targeting our homes, businesses, and streets, the carceral state's presence is undeniably evident in my hometown. Working at the intersections of socially engaged art and documentary practice, I have spent over fifteen years co-creating photo-based projects alongside significant women in my life—my sisters, friends and family members—to resist bureaucratic representations of our lived experiences. While we didn’t intend to document carcerality, the constraints of the carceral state have increasingly impacted our lives and our collaborations. Our collective efforts span various mediums, such as photography, moving image, audio, and the collection of state-issued documents and ephemera, forming a co-created archive.
My practice resists patterns that document and preserve dominant viewpoints and instead moves towards counter-archival practices that serve community and memory, and in actions against ‘official’ records that see intimate lives reduced to pages of paperwork. My research engages in a broader theoretical dialogue around the power and authority of archives and their connection to the carceral state. Through this lens, I examine the tensions in community-engaged arts and documentary photography, particularly participatory and collaborative methods. By positioning ethics and consent as an ongoing process of consultation, engagement, and re-negotiation, I employ a relational approach to artistic representation. This approach has led me to rewrite, amend and develop contractual agreements that resist the confinements of imperial archival regimes imposed by mainstream media and Eurocentric arts institutions.
Most recently, our co-created archive was presented as a multi-authored installation at the Institute of Modern Art in Meanjin/Brisbane. In partnership with Sisters Inside, the exhibition was accompanied by a public program which elevated the knowledge, perspectives, and creative practices of criminalised and formerly incarcerated artists, activists, and scholars. From an abolition feminist standpoint, the program highlighted the urgent need to abolish the culture of power and punishment that permeate our daily lives, our arts practices, our workplaces, and our cultural institutions. While our collaborations are articulated as art, they have also been part of family albums and memorial services, custody disputes and court cases, resulting in reduced custodial sentences and multiple successful bail and parole applications.
I hold a Bachelor of Photography with first class honours from the Queensland College of Art (2012), a diploma of Community Services (Case Management) (2014), a Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Trauma and Recovery Practice (2019) and I am currently a PhD candidate at RMIT’s School of Art.
Acknowledgement: Our artworks confront practices of bureaucratic violence enacted by carceral systems. While our stories are about love, intimacy and connection, they also grapple with experiences of incarceration, the forced removal of children, grief, addiction and trauma.
Our stories may give rise to a range of emotions, thoughts and feelings. It is important that our stories are felt, heard and understood. It is equally important that our artworks do not replicate the carceral state—a system that censors pain and punishes those who express emotion.
We recognise that complex material and feelings need processing. We encourage audiences to take time to reflect on and process these emotions for your own wellbeing.