Cactaceae | Art Exhibition

To contact the artist: Barbara Oizmud

The exhibition by artist Barbara Oizmud, entitled Cactaceae, pays tribute to a species of plants, the succulents, which are a symbol of resistance: living beings able to survive in hostile environments with few resources.

A conceptual metaphor, but also linked to the Hotel: the exhibition, spread throughout the different spaces on the ground floor, is in fact in dialogue with the plants and botanical elements present.

The exhibition hosts a selection of Barbara Oizmud’s most recent works, which have as their common denominator attention to some of the most pressing contemporary social issues, and the defence of the most discriminated and at-risk realities.

A Woman

“In an arrangement of reciprocal osmosis, I have carefully collected the stories of the women who inhabit the Rebibbia prison; on the wall you see, there are them, there is also me. Together.”

In this way, Barbara Oizmud recounts her four-month experience inside the Rebibbia prison where she carried out a workshop with female inmates.

Barbara followed one of the two art workshops, culminating in the creation of a work of art in the women’s section of the prison.

The work is part of the project “L’arte non ha sbarre” (Art has no bars), an art and art education project; winner of the Vitamina G announcement of the Lazio Region, it is realised by the LiberaMente Association, coordinated by Street Art for Rights in collaboration with MArteSocial. Art has no bars is part of the special projects within the broader artistic context that is the #BiennaleMArteLive, a biennial multi-artistic and international event.

Pollen

The work was painted on a large scale on one of the walls of the Ponte Mammolo underground; financed by Atac and Street Art For Rights, the festival that tells and spreads the culture of sustainability and issues that affect the community, through street art, in the sign of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN Agenda.

‘Pollen’, is dedicated to aquatic flora and fauna. The artist reasoned about the 14th goal of the UN 2030 Agenda, which aims to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”.

The result of Barbara Oizmud’s work is a hybrid creature that has ended up in the abyss, the cause and at the same time the cure for a collective man-made wound.

Pollen is person and animal, it is object and coral.
Pollen is a mirror of our society.

Location of the Mural: https://shorturl.at/avKU5

Disco Disco

The video and the artwork Disco Disco, were born out of an almost physical need to recount the constriction of a period of cultural silence, and its natural consequences. The gestures we discovered during the pandemic, and obsessively repeated, turned us into motionless spectators of a life saturated with filters. Waiting has always been a long time. The lack of oxygen, then, is the common thread running through the whole story, but Disco Disco is also, and above all, consciousness-raising, it is a hymn of rebirth.

We need music, music needs our support. The works are dedicated to the entire world of Culture, Entertainment, Events. Small footnote: the word Karaoke sees its origin in Japan, and is made up of the word Kara meaning void and oke, a reduced form of ‘orchestra’. Literally karaoke means ‘without orchestra’; a bit like singing or dancing or breathing alone, for 14 months. Disco Disco was commissioned by Marta “Fivequestionmarks” and Fabio “Produkkt” Sisti, as artwork for their first album.

Link to the Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FMv4OPB1jU

Dionea

Created to be a symbol of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and exhibited at Palazzo Merulana in Rome, Dionea was commissioned by Women in Film, Television & Media (WIFTMI), a non-profit association present since the 1970s in the USA and arrived in Italy in 2018, where it has become a point of reference in the audiovisual and media sector.

WITMI’s goal is to promote gender equality and fight prejudice and stereotypes in the audiovisual industry, through raising awareness towards a fair and inclusive representation of women on screen and in the workplace.

In a complex and multifaceted picture, Dionea represents a woman who has suffered violence, she is sitting on a script that is being regenerated rather than rewritten and she is not alone; the community that supports her becomes instrumental in the healing process: because Dionea’s wound is a collective wound.

Domino

On one of the walls of the historic Casa Internazionale delle Donne (International House of Women) in Rome, located in the monumental complex in Trastevere formerly known as ‘Buon Pastore’, an autonomous body aimed at enhancing women’s politics and offering services and support, also thanks to the dozens of associations and women who live there; Barbara Oizmud has created the mural Domino.

The mythological work, in which the composition of three figures (Lilith, Minerva and The Minotaur) cling to each other in an embrace, becomes a spokesperson for a feeling of resistance and gender equality.

Cactaceae by Barbara Oizmud

Cactaceae | Art Exhibition