Mara Oscar Cassiani (Pesaro, 1981) is a WIFI-based visual artist working with performance, choreography, digital languages, and ritual clubbing. Her research focuses on creating contemporary imagery, in which new grammars and rituals are transformed by the Internet, subcultures, avatars, and brutal capitalism’s narrative.
She explores its relationship with the public, in a broader sense, whether live or mediated, through this visual imagery, in installations performed in open space or in live streaming.
A flow of images, a melting pot of pop excerpts, ritual folklore, digital folklore, and commercial language which gives life to a global snap-shot, a “visual fast food” made of a mix of kitsch, crude rituality, and apocalypse.
Active in Italy as well as the rest of Europe, she is currently part of the European network BE PART. In 2019, she received the Digital Award of Roma Europa Festival for her performance “SPIRITXROMA”. In 2012 she was awarded with the Special Prize Arte Laguna Venezia for the performance “UNO su UNO”. In 2016 she participated in the XVI Quadriennale d'Arte di Roma, "Altri tempi, altri miti".
Notable recent projects include:
"Be Water My Friends #2, we will dance together again", Santarcangelo Festival 2050, Be Part 2021, July 2021;
"SPIRIT X MAMOIADA", Abitare Connessioni Festival, Sardinia 2021;
"SPIRIT AVATAR", digital performance filter, Art Layers for the tenth anniversary of Artribune,2021; Be Plants Club, curated a series of online parties, performances, visuals, and DJ-sets for Santarcangelo 2021 and Be Part;
"I AM DANCING IN A ROOM _ LA FAUNA 2K20", RomaEuropa 2021_2022, call for digital residencies 2021;
"BONDONE", digital artworks and live streaming, INBTWN, Centrale Fies, 2020;
"I AM SURFIN IN A ROOM", online festival VVR19, Fusolab, Roma 2020; LAFAUNA2k20 , RomaEuropaFestival, Digital Live 2020;
"AIRMAX 2K20", webcam version, IbridaFestival 2020 and Accademia Arti Visive Bologna 2020;
"Be Water, My Friends", Santarcangelo Festival 2050 and Be PART, summer 2020;
"We we still make love tomorrow?", online group show: well now wtf, USA- EU 2020;
"Ed3n 2020", Instagram online group show #artistinquarantine, 2020;
"L’Apres midi de la Fauna", Vorspiele, Panke Gallery, Transmediale Berlino, 2020;
"SpiritXRoma", Digitalive category, Roma Europa Festival, 2019;
"Spirit", Progetto Muse Sardegna, Santarcangelo Festival 2017;
"Airmax" (2016-2019), "WifiSpirit" (Xing, Raum Bologna 2016),
"#Ed3n Temple - #Ed3n & #The Perfect Life” (2016, Centrale Fies, Dro), "The Sky was Pink" (2016, Santarcangelo Festival internazionale dei teatri), "Fear Not The Dark", collab. with Markus Ohrn (2016, Kunstenfestivaldearts, Brussels), "Justice" (2015), "You can (not) Advance" (2015), "MMXIV Iconography" (2014-2015), Trashx$$$ (2012), "UNO su UNO" (2011-2012).

Kamilia Kard (Milan, 1981) is an artist and lecturer. After graduating in Political Economics, she shifted to art studies and received a bachelor’s degree in Painting and a specialized degree in Cinema and Video, Net Art at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan. She is currently conducting a PhD in Digital Humanities at Università degli Studi di Genova. She teaches Multimedia Communication at Accademia di Brera and 3D Digital Modelling at Accademia di Carrara.
Her research explores the way hyperconnectivity and new forms of online communication transformed and influenced the perception of human bodies, gestures, feelings, and emotions.
Her works have been presented worldwide, at Galerie Odile Ouizeman in Paris, Dimora Artica in Milan, Metronom in Modena, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, P7 in Paris, IMAL in Brussels, Fotomuseum in Winterthur, La Triennale di Milano, Museum of Contemporary Art, São Paulo, Brazil, La Quadriennale di Roma, Hypersalo in Miami, and Museo del Novecento in Milan. She curated “Alpha Plus. An Anthology of Digital Art” (Editorial Vortex 2017). She held talks during the conference Machine Feeling (Transmediale and Cambridge University), a series of panels focused on AI, machine learning, and the new forms of social and cultural language that derive from them. She was a Visiting Fellow at Paris Sciences et Lettres EnsadLab in François Garnier’s research group Spatial Media, focusing on cognition and agency in VR environments.

Corinne Mazzoli (La Spezia, 1984; lives in Venice) graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in 2008. In 2012 she received a specialized degree in Visual Arts at Università IUAV di Venezia.
Her work is a constant research on invisibility and hypervisibility, on audiovisual deception strategies, on trends and madness, widespread through the Internet. The main spot is always occupied by the body and its representation in the media. She further developed her research thanks to artist-in-residence programs abroad, such as CASA RIO in Rio de Janeiro (2018) during which she created the performance “The Party Wall”; The Lab Program in Mexico City (2019) where she developed her research “Building Mass, Mass and more Mass'' thanks to the contribution of the MOVIN’UP 2018/2019 prize, promoted by MiBAC, GAI, GA/ER.
Notable recent projects include:
2021 (upcoming) “Tutorial non convenzionali”, Museo MAGA, curated by Alessandro Castiglioni, Gallarate (IT) – solo show
2021 “School of Waters”, Mediterranea 19, curated by A Natural Oasis?, Republic of San Marino (SMR).
2021 “Future School”, participant in the Korean Pavilion for the 17th Biennale di Architettura di Venezia (IT), collective project Lagoon Dialogues, as part of the collective “The Venetian Team”.
2021 project “Dolomiti Care” in Comunità Resilienti, Italian Pavilion for the 17th Biennale di Architettura di Venezia (IT), with the video work “L’uomo al limite”.
2021 - Workshop “Variazioni/Variations”, Kids Masterclass in collaboration with Educational Palazzo Grassi, Venezia (IT)
2021 - Workshop “Tutorial non convenzionali”, Progetto ACADEMY YOUNG curated by Museo MAGA, in collaboration with IS G Falcone, Gallarate (IT), sponsored by Regione Lombardia.
2020 - “#ARTISTSINQUARANTINE”, Instagram project curated by Giada Pellicari
The video “Tutorial #1: How to get a Thigh Gap” entered the Stonefly collection in 2013 while “Tutorial: how to customise yourself”, has been part of the Museo MAGA’s collection since 2021.

HOW TO EXPERIENCE THE EXHIBITION
Giada Pellicari
Various research fields tightly link the three artists. They have also been developed in the form of a long online chat that has now been going on for almost two years: a continuous back-and-forth that has become an actual online space for dialogue and both theoretical and visual influences.
The affinity between them is obvious. The representation of women and the female body, gender issues, the queer-feminist aesthetic are constantly included in their practice, just like the dynamics of social networks and the Internet Culture, approaching elements such as the coexistence of the on-line and the off-line self, hyper-connection, the virality of memes and videos. Their works, especially those on display, also contain references to spirituality, holiness, and what is usually called the “divine feminine”.
"A Visual Threesome" has a visually disturbing and fascinating kitsch spirit which dialogues with popular taste. It also hints at a languid and soft form of erotism, in which the woman is equally Gaia, Aphrodite, and Minerva.
“A Visual Threesome” aims to speak of mother earth, of nature and paganism, of love, sexuality, and sensuality, of strong and determined characters, and of the importance of knowledge. The jarring use of fluorescent, bright, and artificial palettes, which characterizes the artists’ work, is often accompanied by soundtracks ranging from dance music to metal, which give life to a form of performativity shared by the three of them. This aspect appears both on-line and off-line, on their social media profiles and through the use of Instagram filters, in the public raves/DJ sets and in meditations, in solo speeches in front of the camera or with actresses, in the color change of online characters as they unexpectedly “hack” private chats or through the use of Instagram filters.
An intense performative fil rouge touches upon ritual and carnivalesque aspects, with connotations of camouflage, movement, and music, in Mazzoli and Cassiani, while it appears more subtly and intimately in Kamilia Kard: in her work, the performative relationship emerges in the one-to-one relationship which is established, for example, when one plays her videogame or moves around her typical Venus 3D sculptures.

Mara Oscar Cassiani’s “Nuovo Habitat” consists of a performance, a workshop, and an installation specifically designed to be displayed at the center of Careof’s exhibition space.
The participative performance, described by the artist as “spiritual rave site-specific”, is preceded by a 5-day training of physical and mental preparation.
Dedicated to women and anyone who identifies as “she”, the project also involves a collaboration with La Grande Casa, a social cooperative that has been sheltering women escaping violence and mistreatment and helping them return to an autonomous life for twenty years.
“Nuovo Habitat” was inspired by the discovery of a female warrior’s remains in a grave in Sweden, which archeologists mistook for a man’s for years. Only in 2019 was the body correctly identified, thanks to DNA analysis, giving rise to a rereading of many contemporary archeological discoveries which shed light on the importance that matrilineality and matriarchal society also assume in war contexts. The performers are dressed as contemporary warriors trained in a choreographic form of boxing. As the artist affirms, “they contrast with feminine gender stereotypes”: she intends to create a new contemporary ceremonial filled with energy.
Mara Oscar Cassiani’s installation is made of t-shirts and cloth, costumes chosen and used for the performance, embroidered with motivational mantras such as “Matriarchy” and “Sisterhood”. Plaster hands made during the training with the participants are displayed in the exhibition space and on revisited yoga mats. The site-specific Wall Painting presents the typical and recurring flame symbol of Boxing and Tuning culture, presented in the “pastel” tones that characterize gender fluidity and Internet aesthetics. Her ability to combine arts, music, performance, and typical DJ-sets of clubbing culture and Romagna tradition – which she calls “raveology” – is a way to create contemporary rituals in which liberation from one’s role can happen, as it does in the carnival tradition, achieving at the same time a form of Dionysian catharsis. The music’s rhythm takes on the connotation of a mantra: expanded for a long time, it produces a group dance in which the bodies become a unicum. Mara Oscar Cassiani’s performances associate dance music’s beats with the body’s movements, ancient traditions with pagan archaic rituals, Wiccan and contemporary shamanic atmospheres with yoga meditations often based on the relationship between human beings and nature.

Kamilia Kard’s artistic practice began with traditional art before evolving into digital art. Both sides can easily be identified in her works, as she uses existing historical and artistic references as well as strong aesthetics characterized by iridescent colors, typically found in screens, and by glitter effects that give her works a sensual appeal. “Untitled” is a videogame/project specifically imagined for the exhibition, which is staged as a small set, a small private room in pastel pink and bubble-gum tones. The main character is a female warrior who matches the “Hot-Babe” stereotype, a beautiful woman with an hourglass figure. However, some elements clash with that vision: the scary and grotesque makeup as well as her war gear with its swords, axes, and shields, which recall both the fantasy aesthetic and German archaic culture. The game unfolds in an ancient and pink setting recalling a temple. Visitors can play and fight against a scrawny and disarmed male figure in his underwear, her obvious counterpart and “villain” of the story. Alas, she is condemned to the endless repetition of a game which invariably ends with her defeat: the fight is always the same, creating a loop feeling which highlights the protagonist’s powerlessness.
The videogame is accompanied by the related video project “Loading instructions (Mansplaining)”, a sort of trailer to watch before playing in which the viewer is catapulted in a fantastic but deeply sexist world. Some of the artist’s other typical images appear, such as the “Judith and Holofernes” series, in which textures are particularly precious and detailed. The temple also becomes the installation’s narrative thread, in dialogue with the impressive, imposing and pink 3D sculpture of Venus, “Woman as a Temple”, a new item of a series that she’s been working on since 2017, and a smaller version in light blue tones.
This project recalls a long and complete iconography belonging to art history, in which women are voluptuous and curvy, and draws attention to Paleolithic Venus figurines such as the famous Willendorf Venus and to Rubens’s paintings. These divine feminine torsos, acephalous and limbless busts imbued with traces of the “divine feminine”, also evoke values of fertility and abundance. For the artist, the body assumes here these abstract characteristics: it is not recognizable anymore but becomes almost aseptic and architectural.

Corinne Mazzoli’s aesthetics is powerful and closely related to video editing. Higher and lower culture merge, creating jarring medleys and nonsensical anachronistic tutorials with trash, erotic, and iridescent aesthetics. Her works refer to the study of human behavior, manias, contemporary obsessions, and temporary trends, and to the artificiality of bodies. They are accompanied by noise music, power electronics, and metal, in which noise is the desired type of value. In the past two years, the artist seems to have paid great attention to nature, embodying some elements of ecofeminism. The relationship with the landscape is prevalent in “L’uomo al limite” (The edge of Mankind), a video made on the Venetian Dolomites little time before the pandemic, also prompted by a natural tragedy such as the Vaia storm, which destroyed 10 million cubic meters of trees. The video shows a long movement of the artist, wearing a mask, who goes from the church of Santa Fosca di Cadore to Lake Lagole. She symbolically retraces Saint Christopher’s life, protector of natural disasters, in his primary form of Reprobus, a barbarian, a therianthrope, and in some ways an immigrant vagabond. This cult, born in Hellenistic and Egyptian contexts, contains some references to God Anubis, guide of souls. The same kind of passage of souls to the afterlife can also be found in the Christian iconography, when the Saint bears Jesus, giving a start to his own following martyrdom. The video is accompanied by a sequence of highly oneiric vampire-inspired graphics which create a rhythm for different episodes: Prelude, Martyrdom, and Sanctity. “L’uomo al limite” is a form of contemporary pagan pilgrimage, rhythmically marked by the artist’s steps and the Saint’s characteristic walking stick, which she created.
The installation is a set made of the video and five banners referring to the stages of Saint Christopher’s martyrdom. The symbolic sequence of the elements of his death rise before our eyes: iron rods, arrows, a red-hot helmet, fire, and beheading.

La Grande Casa scs was founded in 1989 with the aim of promoting and defending rights, supporting and respecting every individual life project, and fostering social and work integration for the most vulnerable people. We operate in favor of women, minors and families, youth, migrants, and the local community in the provinces of Milan, Monza & Brianza, Como, and Lecco. For over 20 years, we have welcomed women escaping situations of violence and abuse and supported them towards autonomy. In 2020, we worked with 11,515 adults, children, and adolescents served by our services and projects, and involved over 4,600 people in events and training initiatives. We hosted 55 children in residential communities, 50 mothers with children or single women in shelters, social protection and autonomy programs; supported 30 migrants; 10 unaccompanied minor migrants; 50 children and youths in day communities; 60 youths in youth centers; 100 children in early childhood services; and initiated 120 foster family projects.
La Grande Casa scs

Founded in 2008 by Alvise di Canossa, Art Defender is a leading company specializing in art collection management services. The company operates in four main areas: conservation, consulting, insurance, and logistics. With over 12,000 m² of facilities in Milan, Turin, Bologna, Florence, and Rome, and supported by a team of professionals and a network of top-tier partners, it is a preferred partner for collectors, industry players, museums, and businesses for preserving, managing, and enhancing artistic heritage and collectible assets.

Art Defender is the only entity in Italy with a network of high‑security vaults designed and equipped to guarantee the highest conservation standards and climate-controlled according to the specific needs of the items. The vaults—organized into private spaces and shared storage—include restoration areas, spaces for private viewings and negotiations, photo studios, and state-of-the-art technology for diagnostic analysis and decontamination. Additional conservation activities include spaces for the custody and maintenance of vintage and supercars, specialized solutions for the storage of fine and collectible wines, and refrigerated units for photographic archives. The Bologna facility also hosts Italy’s most important private customs warehouse for preserving artworks, valuables, and cars under customs exemption.

In consulting, Art Defender supports private collectors, companies, and institutions by providing appraisals and expertise, valuations (for patrimonial, insurance, succession, and financial reporting purposes), management of archiving procedures, and assistance in purchasing and selling artworks and collections. Through internal expertise and a network of external specialists, Art Defender assists its clients in both routine and extraordinary management of collections, particularly in succession planning and designing collection management vehicles.

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Together with its affiliate Arterìa, Art Defender offers specialized art logistics services, supporting clients not only in transport—both national and international—but also in import-export operations, handling ministry procedures, and exhibition installation and dismantling.

Art Defender brings a new concept of art services, creating a complete offering at every stage of asset management, able to identify the best solution to protect and enhance valuable objects over time.
Art Defender

Mara Oscar Cassiani’s performance “Nuovo Habitat” was created in partnership with Super Bubble Associazione Culturale and A.I.T. ASSOCIAZIONE ITALIANA TUNERS.

A.I.T ASSOCIAZIONE ITALIANA TUNERS
“Our community is a large family with a unique history, rich in diverse passions and shared experiences. In this variety lies the passion that unites us. Our association has a solid background in the tuning world—enthusiasm nurtured by its founders for over twenty years. In 2008, Associazione Italiana Tuners was born, and we share it with friends and supporters, which empowers us to expand our knowledge and passion for cars that have marked automotive history, organizing and managing meet-ups of aesthetically modified cars for social purposes. Supported by a trained and expert staff. In 2016, we created a section dedicated to “adult” cars. Our motto is “Passione Tuning senza compromessi.”

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In case you should need other information or content, write to: careof@careof.org

The project is part of Milano ArtWeek 2021 and Vapore D’Estate, a joint programme shared by the Laboratori di Fabbrica del Vapore, within the Spazi al Talento initiative, supported by Comune di Milano.

In collaboration with La Grande Casa

Under the patronage of Fondazione Cariplo

With the contribution of Regione Lombardia

Technical partner: Art Defender

Media partner: NERO

Thanks to:
A.I.T. Associazione Italiana Tuners (Davide Attardi, Gaetano Bandiera, Gianluca Borrelli, Anselmo Erca, Irene Maroungiu, Giovanni Varrica)
Apulia Center for Art and Technology
Chiara Boscolo and Daniele Dall'Acqua
Silvia Cangioli
Fabbrix®
Anna Kaona
Giorgio Ronzani
Super Bubble Associazione Culturale

For a safe visit and in compliance with current anti–Covid-19 rules, access via Careof and attendance at Mara Oscar Cassiani’s performance are allowed only to those in possession of a green Covid-19 certificate containing the QR Code (proof of vaccination, recovery from Covid‑19, or a negative molecular or rapid antigen test taken within 48 hours before the visit), to be shown upon entry along with an ID document.

The green Covid-19 certificate is required for all visitors over the age of 12 (children under 12 do not need any documentation to enter exhibition spaces), except for those exempted based on a medical certificate.