Elisa Giardina Papa’s research-based practice investigates the performance of gender, sexuality, and labor in digital AI economies. Working across large scale video installation, drawings, sculptures, and theoretical texts, she documents how past and present forms of capitalism have extracted our capacities for labor and living—including sleep, intimacy, and emotion. With witty and poetic framing, her work calls attention to those parts of our lives, desires, and embodiments that
Elisa Giardina Papa
ABOUT
remain radically unruly, untranslatable, and un-computable.
Elisa Giardina Papa is also a founding member of the artist collective Radha May. Together with Bathsheba Okwenje and Nupur Mathur, they develop performances and art installations that reveal forgotten archives, hidden histories, and peripheral sites, exploring their relation to gender, and colonialism.
EXHIBITIONS
VIEWING ROOM
CHANNEL
NEWS
BIOGRAPHY
ELISA GIARDINA PAPA
Born in Medicina, Italy
Lives and works in New York and Sant’Ignazio, Sicily.
Education
2022
PhD candidate, Film and Media, University of California Berkeley, USA
2020 -2021
Institute of Speculative and Critical Inquiry, Queer Theory Rewilded. Faculty: Jack Halberstam, Tavia Nyong’o, and Damon Young.
2013
MFA – RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), Providence, RI, USA.
2007
BA – Politecnico di Milano, Facoltà del Design, Milano, Italy.
Scholarships and awards
2022
STARTS Prize, Honorary Mention
2019 –2020
Ammerman Center for Arts & Technology Fellowship, Connecticut College, New London.
2019
Leuphana University Summer Fellowship, Center for Digital Culture.
2016 – 2021
Mellon UC Berkeley Fellowship
2015
Forbes Foundation, Malcolm S. Forbes Center for Culture and Media Studies Fund. Creative Arts Council, Brown University, Arts Initiative Fund.
2014
Brown University, Italian Studies Department Fund.
Brown University, Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women Fund.
Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, Patrocinio for the project When The Towel Drops.
2013
Rhode Island School of Design, Digital + Media Thesis Award.
2011
Rhode Island School of Design MFA Fellowship.
Solo exhibitions, performances and projects (selected)
2024
“U Scantu”: A Disorderly Tale
City Dome Gallery, Collective, Edinburgh
2023
Flock – She Preferred the Lineage of Goats and Ducks
Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin
Ether’s Bloom – Ein Programm zu Künstlicher Intelligenz
Gropius Bau, Berlin
2022
Technologies of Care, Labor of Sleep
Digital Kunsthalle Imago Mundi, Fondazione Imago Mundi, Treviso
2020
When The Towel Drops I Vol.1
ICA Milano (Institute for Contemporary Art Milano)
Cleaning Emotional Data
Aksioma Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana
2018
Labor of Sleep, Have you been able to change your habits??
Videokunst, Bern
2017
Labor of Sleep, Have you been able to change your habits??
Whitney Sunrise/Sunset Commission, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
2016
The Download: Technologies of Care
Rhizome The Download Commission, rhizome.org
When The Towel Drops I Vol.1 – Italy
with Radha May, Area Ricerca Progressiva, Studio Azzurro
La Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan
2015
When The Towel Drops
Granoff Center for the Arts, Brown University, Providence
Group exhibitions (selected)
2024
Work between meaning and imbalance
Kunsthaus Graz, Graz
Italia 70. Nuovi Mostri
Fondazione Trussardi, Milan
Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin
HKW, Berlin
Leaking Subjects and Bounding Boxes
Secession in Wien, Vienna
Sortir le travail de sa nuit – (Taking the work out of its night)
CCC OD – Jardin François, Tours
2023
Darker, Lighter, Puffy, Flat
Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna
Digital Capture: Southern California and the Origins of the Pixel-Based Image World
California Museum of Photography , California
Between the Lines
Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin
New Cinema and Contemporary Art
Internationales Paris/Berlin, Paris
Lighea
UNA Galleria, Piacenza
Gallery Weekend Festival
Gallery Weekend, Berlin
Reflex Blue
TEMPLE BAR GALLERY + STUDIOS, Dublin
Their Volumes
Cristella Collection, Cortemaggiore
Where the wild things are
Horst Arts & Music, Vilvoord
Spaziotraccia
Andersen Museum, Rome
Salto Nel Vuoto. Arte al di là della materia
GAMec, Bergamo
Techno Sapiens
M Plus Museum Limited, Hong Kong
Vidéothèque
Galerie Tanja Wagner
2022
Safe Mode: Amplified Realities
The Project Gallery, Athens
STARTS Prize
Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria.
Alter + Ego
ERES Foundation, Munich, Germany
Labor
CAL Chaleroi, Belgium
Feu d’artifice /rafale de chorales
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Il latte dei sogni. The milk of dreams
59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Venice
Video arte in Italia, il video rende felice
Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome
Need Ideass!?! PLZ !!
Cinema Nova, Brussels
Techno Romance: Data, Dating, Desire
Le Commun, Genève
House of Mirrors – Artificial Intelligence as Phantasm
HMKV Hartware Medien Kunst Verein, Dortmund
Empathic Device –It’s Hard to Get Enough of Something That Almost Works Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin
Screen Matters – The Screen As A Place Of Work
Screening for online symposium
Desire Is Something Boundless
Pars Pro toto – Peer to space
2021
Cuerpos-quimeras
Miranda Bosch Gallery, Timbre Arte, Argentina
Daedalus
OVNi Festival, Nice
Dixit Algorizmi
Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Vogliamo tutto
OGR, Torino
Swipe Right!
IMAL, Brussels
Broad Underground: Home series
Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum Michigan State University, Michigan
Smile! Emotions at Work
Musée d’art de Joliette, Joliette, Québec
Don’t Be Evil
UQ Art Museum, Brisbane
Linz FMR Art in Digital Contexts and Public Spaces
Mühlkreisbahnhof in Linz Urfahr
Maratona di Visione – Rassegna online di Videoarte
Online Show
Ibrida Festival delle arti intermediali
EXATR, Forlì, Italy
2020
Conflict in My Outlook
UQ Art Museum, Brisbane Qld, Australia
The Sea Is Glowing
Exportdrvo, Rijeka, Croatia
Bohemia Exhibition
Haifa Museum of Art, Israel
Algotaylorism
La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, Centre D’art Contemporain, France
Fitart | Connected in Isolation
Roehrs & Boetsch Gallery, online show
Human Sovereignty
Pistori Palace, Bratislava
[Re]Generation
Ammerman Center for Arts & Technology, New London, USA
Human Services
Lavitrine, Limoges
Empathy Loading
Furtherfield, Online Show
2019
When The Towel Drops I Vol.1
Italy – Performance, Fondazione Il Lazzaretto, Milan
The Time of “Women’s Work”
Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley
Io non sto lavorando noi stiamo facendo
Real Academia de España en Roma, Rome
Who Does What?
Drugo More, Rijeka
ArtsFeedr™
Deptford X Festival 2019, Art Hub Studios CIC, London
Zero Autonomy
Némo Biennial, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
New Convenience
Gallery.Delivery, Berlin
Hyperemployment
Aksioma, Ljubljana
Technocare
Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Vienna
Computer Grrrls
La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris
Computer Grrrls
MU, Eindhoven
Do or Delegate: Entrepreneurial Means and Precarious Ends
Onomatopee, Eindhoven
The Overkill Festival
De Museum Fabriek, Enschede
Asolo Art Film Festival 2019
Post Internet Art, Montebelluna
2018
Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2018
Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul
Roma Europa Festival
Digital Live, Mattatoio, Rome
Computer Grrrls
HMKV (Hartware MedienKunstVerein), Dortmund
Sortir du Désenchantement du Numérique
Espace Multimédia Gantner, Bourogne
1 iJ, EKKM
Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, Tallin
Labor of Sleep, Have you been able to change your habits??
Museo de Artes Visuales – MAVI, Santiago
What Can Be Seen, with Radha May
Spring Break Art Show, New York
2017
The Following Scenes will be Deleted
UNIONDOCS, Center for Documentary Art, New York
Escaping the Digital Unease!
Kunsthaus Langenthal, Langenthal
#exstrange
online exhibition on eBay
2016
Bitcoins Love AKA Karaoke Show
KTV, Milan
Getting to Know the Middleman
SIA, New York
Children
New Media Gallery, New Westminster, Canada
Flaherty NYC, WILD SOUNDS
Anthology Film Archives, Flaherty Seminar, New York
XVI Quadriennale di Roma
Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome
A/rrivederci Roma
online show
Your Digital Self Hates You
Stadtgalerie, Bern
2015
I.ch _ wie online leben uns verändert
Vögele Kultur Zentrum, Pfäffikon
6PM Your Local Time Europe
Castello di Brescia and online, Link Center for The Arts, Brescia
Labor of Love
250 Varet Street, Brooklyn, New York
Sun Screening Vol.II, Videology
308 Bedford Ave, New York
Interrupt 3 – New Forms of Language Art
Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Brown University, USA
2014
No Place To Hide
Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea, Montefalcone
Visioni OFF – V.A.I.
Chiesa di San Francesco, Pordenone
2013
MoMA Modern Mondays, Millennium Film Journal
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Back to The Reality
Projeckt722, New York
Elisa Giardina Papa: Drawing from Life
Link Center for the Arts, Brescia
Brush Stroke
Granoff Center for the Arts, Brown University, Providence
More and More, More Is More
Gelman Gallery, Chace Center, Providence
2012
Pixilerations [v.9]
Providence, Rhode Island
Trickle Down Electronics
CAVE Gallery, Detroit
Collect the WWWorld, The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age
Basel House for Electronic Arts, Basel
Older Than Bambi
Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence
2011
BYOB Art Basel Miami
Grand Central, Miami
Unofficial Internet Pavilion
54th Biennale di Venezia, The Island of Internet & BYOB, Venice
Open
New Gallery London
De-zer
web exhibition
Monographs
Elisa Giardina Papa, Leaking Subjects and Bounding Boxes: On Training AI, Munich: Sorry Press, 2022.
Catalogues
The Milk of Dreams: Il Latte Dei Sogni: 59th Biennale Arte, First ed. Venezia: La Biennale di Venezia, 2022.
Videoarte in Italia: Il Video Rende Felici, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome. Edited by Valentina Valentini. Roma: Treccani, 2022.
House of Mirrors – Artificial Intelligence as Phantasm, HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, Germany, 2022. Edited by Inke Arns.
Conflict in My Outlook edited by Anna Briers, Nicholas Carah and Holly Arden. Melbourne: Perimeter Editions, The University of Queensland Art Museum, 2022.
Vogliamo tutto, OGR, Torino. Edited by Samuele Piazza and Nicola Ricciardi. Milano: Lenz Press, 2021.
COMPUTER GRRRLS, HMKV Hartware Medien Kunst Verein, Dortmund, and La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris. Edited by Inke Arns and Marie Lechner. Dortmund: Kettler, 2021.
Hyperemployment – Post-work, Online Labour and Automation, edited by Domenico Quaranta and Janez Janša. Roma: NERO and Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2020.
When The Towel Drops I Vol.1, Edited by Clauda d’Alonzo. Milano: Fondazione ICA, 2019.
Collect the WWWorld. The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age. Edited by Domenico Quaranta. Brescia, Italy: LINK Editions, 2012.
The Milk of Dreams: Il Latte Dei Sogni: 59th Biennale Arte, First ed. Venezia: La Biennale di Venezia, 2022.
Videoarte in Italia: Il Video Rende Felici, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome. Edited by Valentina Valentini. Roma: Treccani, 2022.
House of Mirrors – Artificial Intelligence as Phantasm, HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, Germany, 2022. Edited by Inke Arns.
Conflict in My Outlook edited by Anna Briers, Nicholas Carah and Holly Arden. Melbourne: Perimeter Editions, The University of Queensland Art Museum, 2022.
Vogliamo tutto, OGR, Torino. Edited by Samuele Piazza and Nicola Ricciardi. Milano: Lenz Press, 2021.
COMPUTER GRRRLS, HMKV Hartware Medien Kunst Verein, Dortmund, and La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris. Edited by Inke Arns and Marie Lechner. Dortmund: Kettler, 2021.
Hyperemployment – Post-work, Online Labour and Automation, edited by Domenico Quaranta and Janez Janša. Roma: NERO and Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2020.
When The Towel Drops I Vol.1, Edited by Clauda d’Alonzo. Milano: Fondazione ICA, 2019.
Collect the WWWorld. The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age. Edited by Domenico Quaranta. Brescia, Italy: LINK Editions, 2012.
Articles and Book Chapters
Catricalà, Valentino and Luigi Maccalini. “Elisa Giardina Papa e la nuova fabbrica digitale” in Wired, August 8, 2022.
Arns, Inke. “Can Artificial Intelligence Be Biased? On the Critique of Ai’s ‘Algorithmic Bias’ in the Arts.” In Training the Archive. Dortmund, 2022.
O’Dwyer, Rachel. “ Elisa Giardina Papa interviewed by Rachel O’Dwyer.” In Neural – Issue 68, 2021.
Eichwalder, Manischa. “Data Cleaning.” In Who Cares, Engagée #10, 2021/2022.
Morucchio, Giulia and Banfi, Riccardo. “Disclosure #3” CACTUS, Spring/Summer 2021.
Giardina Papa, Elisa. “Invisible Boyfriends and U/users.” In COMPUTER GRRRLS, edited by Inke Arns and Marie Lechner, 46-55. Dortmund: Kettler, 2021.
Cotimbo, Daniela. “Episode VI. Sex and Desire in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” Flash Art, March 2021.
Deggiovanni, Piero. “Estetica accelerazionista e popoli della rete” Jiuliet, May 18, 2021.
Hunger, Francis. “Data Workers* Of All Countries, Make an End!” In Hamburg Maschine Revisited: Artistic and Critical Investigations into Our Digital Condition. Edited by Isabella Kohlhuber and Oliver Leistert. Hamburg: Adocs, 2021.
Riva, Caterina. “L’età dell’algoritmo” Antinomie, April 12, 2021.
Parisi, Luciana. “Improper Commonness: the Surrogate Economy of Artificial Intelligence.” In Hyperemployment, edited by Domenico Quaranta. Ljubljana: Aksioma Press, 2020.
Quaranta, Domenico. “Work is Over: The Merging of Life and Labour in the Age of Automation.” In Hyperemployment. Ljubljana: Aksioma Press, 2020.
Demartini, Gianluca and Caroline Wilson-Barnao. “Artificial Intelligence (AI) Needs Human Intervention: A Reflection on Elisa Giardina Papa’s Technologies of Care (2016).” In Conflict in My Outlook_We Met Online, Provocation. University of Queensland, Brisbane, 2020.
Adler, Jazmín. ”Body/Machine Configurations: Perspectives on Humanized Technologies in the Electronic Arts” EAI Endorsed Transactions on Creative Technologies, no. 7: issue 22, January 22, 2020.
Hu, Tung-Hui and Elisa Giardina Papa. “How Ai Manufactures a Smile: Tung-Hui Hu Interviews Artist Elisa Giardina Papa on Digital Labor.” Media-N 16, no. 1 (2020): 141–50.
Yue, Genevieve. “Gradivan Footsteps in the Film Archive.” In Girl Head: Feminism and Film Materiality, 182-229. New York: Fordham University Press, 2020.
Longhi, Lucia. “Technologies of Care: An Interview with Elisa Giardina Papa.” Berlin Art Link, Feb. 11, 2020.
Levin, Erica. “Toward a Social Cinema Revisited.” Millennium Film Journal 58 (58): 30–36, 2013.
Aude Launay. “Automate All The Things!” Zérodeux, Spring 2020. LINK or PDF - Young, Damon R. “Ironies of Web 2.0.” Post45, Issue 2: How To Be Now, Feb. 05, 2019.
Giardina Papa, Elisa, Nupur Mathur, and Bathsheba Okwenje. “An Interview with the Artist Radha May: A Global Collective with a Single Identity.” Camera Obscura 31, no. 93, 177-183, 2016.
Chierico, Alessio. “Art and Materiality in Post-media Practice: Toward an Ontology of Digital and Its Devices.” In Archiving and Questioning Immateriality, Proceedings of the 5th Computer Art Congress, edited by Everardo Reyes-García Pierre Châtel-Innocenti Khaldoun Zreik. Paris: Europia Productions, 2016.
Sessa, Carlo. “Dialogando d’arte: Radha May (Elisa Giardina Papa, Nupur Mathur, Bathsheba Okwenje).” Playboy Italia, N.24, Jan 2020.
Di Biase, Antonella. “Questa video installazione riporta in luce le scene censurate nel cinema italiano.” i-D VICE, Nov 28, 2019.
Tanni, Valentina. “Studiare la censura per capire la società: intervista al collettivo radha May (Elisa Giardina Papa, Nupur Mathur, Bathsheba Okwenje).” Artribune, Dec 15, 2019.
Becker, Natasha. “In Conversation with Radha May, The Collective Unearthing: Censored Scenes from Postwar Italian Cinema.” C& (Contemporary And), Mar 19, 2018.
Yablonsky, Linda. “From Spring/Break’s riotous energy to radical ceramics at Salon 94.” The Art Newspaper, March 15, 2018.
Baumbach, Nico. “Cinema as Emergency Break: Agamben and the Philosophy of Media After Benjamin.” In Cinema/Politics/Philosophy, 126-169. Columbia University Press, 2018.
Elsaesser, Thomas. “The Essay Film. From Film Festival Favorite to Flexible Commodity Form?” In Essays on the Essay Film, edited by Alter, Nora M, and Timothy Corrigan, 240-258. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.
McNeil, Joanne. “Endless Archive.” In Collect the WWWorld. The Artist as Archivist in the Internet Age, ed. Domenico Quaranta, 38-47. Brescia, Italy: Editions, 2012.
Nastro, Santa. “Comunicare l’arte. O no? Parlano i protagonisti (II).” Artribune, March 31, 2016.
Jeffries, Adrianne. “Collect the WWWorld’ attempts to archive the internet through art.” The Verge, Oct 20, 2012.