Marta Lodola (born in 1985, Borgosesia) is a visual and performance artivist.
She grew up in Valsesia, in close contact with the natural environment, until she moved to Milan in 2006. In 2011 she graduated in Painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts under the guidance of her teachers Antonio Caronia and Valerio Ambiveri. In 2014 she took part as assistant in “Abramovic Method” at PAC, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan. She attended workshops with Zierle&Carter, Christina Georgiou and Dagmar Glausnitzer Smith. Since 2013 she has been living and working between Italy and Berlin, exhibiting her works internationally.
She held workshops at the Brera Academy of Arts (2017), at the “Werkstatt für interkulturelle Medienarbeit WIM e.V (workshop for blind photographers, 2018), at the “Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz” (2019) and at the secondary School in Perteole with “IoDeposito” (2021-2022).
Her work has been published on Exibart, Artribune, Fuori Asse, Oggi, Juliet, Friuli Sera and La Gazzetta di Treviso.
She performed at Satellite Miami Art Week, IoDeposito, Materic.org, Flutgraben e V., OKK Organ kritischer Kunst, 20Zinnober Hannover, Sofia Underground, Luisa Catucci Gallery, CIPAF Cyprus International Perfomance Art Festival, and in Milan.
Her work has been supported by the European Cultural Foundation, the Municipality of Milan, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, the Association Chan, Current, and Compagnia San Paolo.
She is a holistic practitioner trained in Reiki, Ayurveda and Massage. In 2020 she founded Olistica Akasha, through which she supports people on their personal and spiritual growth paths and she also organizes workshops which combine holism and conscious movement.
Statement
Her research practice aims at investigating the body and its social significance, observing the power dynamics to which it is subjected in the contemporary society. Through the creation of long-durational actions, site-specific performances, self-timer pictures, videos, installations and illustrations, Lodola aims to build a historical memory of the territory through immersive actions in which the public becomes the protagonist in a shared and interactive experience.
Marta Lodola’s performances are acts of public outcries, in which the individual action has a ritualistic and collective value. The performance is both a cathartic and an archaic experience for Lodola, through embodiment and interaction she deals with important issues of our society, trying to convey a message or questioning the public.
The environment has a big role in Lodola’s work, because she often performs outside the galleries and the art spaces. Rural environments, urban spaces and previously used historical buildings are places where the performative interventions acquire another kind of potential. The public is often surprised by finding Lodola’s work in non-conventional spaces, sometimes people’s attention get caught while they are living their daily life. In those moments intimate relations become stronger, because they are not filtered with expectations.
Marta Lodola’s works are site-specific, site-responsive or site-adaptive and can be short or long-durational performances. Nevertheless, some of her projects developed through a series of actions during years of research in which performative interventions were becoming a widespread territorial and communal practice, aiming at re-uniting the community around a specific theme or place of interest.
The concept of the archive is another important aspect of her works, where individual experiences and common actions are lived to build a future collective memory around a specific topic.
Her illustrations talk about her intimate story: spirituality, dreams, visions, everything that is impossible to express in another way. Watercolours, acrylics, micro ink-pen and Ecoline are her favourite tools to creates artworks, book illustrations and covers. Both when there is space for lightness and when it’s time to speak out for human rights, her images come from the depth of the Self.
