Interview: Caterina Carraro
Luca Curci talks with Caterina Carraro during Venice International Art Fair 2021 at THE ROOM Contemporary Art Space.

Caterina Carraro is an Italian visual artist and designer living in Berlin. Coming from the world of User Experience Design, fascinated by the study of the visual and cerebral perception of experiential stimuli, Caterina started to investigate through visual representation the human-non-human matter and the non-binary coexistence. “I am a unicellular organism, my matter is organic and mineral, also present in the space I inhabit. The atmosphere is in me, horizons pass between my membranes, immersion keeps me alive. I am a laboratory of life, an autopoietic system. I am a mother, but not according to the gender code. I live in symbiosis with my foetuses.”

LUCA CURCI – What is art for you?
CATERINA CARRARO – For me, art is a medium to excite and promote a non-hierarchical and non-binary coexistence on this planet.

LC – What’s your background? What is the experience that has influenced your work the most?
CC – I come from the world of User Experience, Interface and Brand Design. I’ve been a multidisciplinary Art Director for years so I have studied human perception and sensory interaction extensively (particularly the visual and cerebral variety). I vaguely remember my mother painting realistic but very colourful landscapes, I was probably in the cradle and did not sleep at night while she painted. I also remember my father experimenting with surreal and abstract paintings, engravings and concrete sculptures.

LC – Where do you find your inspiration?
CC – I am inspired by the speculative fabulas of Donna Haraway, by her utopian vision of a Chthulucene era. When I started to deal with the reproduction of the Guman I was inspired by the concepts of Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene.

LC – Are your artworks focused on a specific theme?
CC – Yes, I am experimenting with a concept concerning gender breakdown and fluidity, coexistence with humans-non-humans, climate change and Anthropocene.

LC – Which is the role the artist plays in society? And contemporary art?
CC – One of the roles is to produce visual and sensory stimuli to excite the user who is the audience of the artistic experience. The role of the artist is to study the aesthetic façade, the behavioural part of the work is physically immersive, but above all, to concern himself with the emotional and experiential background of society regarding the theme, he deals with through his works. In my case, contemporary art aims to vaccinate life on/of Gaia against the Anthropocene.

LC – Can you explain something about the artworks you have in our exhibition?
CC – Guman in Terrapolis is the first artwork I’ve ever done. The ‘Guman’ you see is an evolved single-celled organism, capable of being a laboratory of life thanks to an autopoietic system that makes it a mother even though it does not belong to any gender code. In this surreal vision what we would call mutation by meiosis has taken place, a division capable of creating a perfect pearly replica, which like the original lives with and in Gaia: a solution to the inevitable consequential evolutionary extinction.

LC – In which way the artwork presented in our exhibition is connected with the festival’s theme?
CC– In view of the particular historical period in which we live, and consequently the various postponements that this exhibition has undergone, my work is coherent in that it prompts reflection on the coexistence of humans and non-humans. By non-humans, we also mean the ecosystem of viruses and bacteria that live in/on Gaia.

LC – Did you enjoy cooperating with us?
CC – Yes I did. A special thanks to Giulia Tassi for her helpfulness and kindness.

LC – What do you think about ITSLIQUID Platform?
CC – Promising. I would develop a virtual experiential part. I will also give you my availability as a UX designer 😉