BIOGRAPHY
Romina De Novellis (born in Naples in 1982, lives and works in Paris) is a performance artist, anthropologist, researcher, and educator. Trained in anthropology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and graduated in dance from the Royal Academy of Dance in London, she has developed for over twenty years a practice at the intersection of performance, video, photography, and installation.
Her work is grounded in both an artistic and anthropological approach to the body, conceived as a political, social, and cultural space. Her practice also extends into writing, considered as a continuation of her field research and performative devices. At the crossroads of anthropology, artistic creation, and narrative, she develops an approach based on investigation, immersion, and the collection of testimonies.
Through fieldwork conducted mainly in Mediterranean societies or within specific communities (women, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, social and cultural minorities), she analyzes the mechanisms of oppression, domination, and corruption that permeate contemporary patriarchal structures. Her work explores the complex relationships between gender, ritualization, traditions, as well as micro-criminality, global economic systems, and institutional powers, with particular attention to the continuities between local forms of domination and transnational systems of exploitation.
Informed by ecofeminist theories, her research highlights tensions between nature and culture, feminine and masculine, dominant and marginalized cultures, scientific knowledge and empirical knowledge, while proposing forms of resistance based on counter-rituals, collective memory, the silent transmission of patriarchal structures, and the reappropriation of bodies.
Filmed performance constitutes the core of her practice. Her works often take the form of long-duration endurance performances, in which time becomes an essential material for experimentation, transformation, and resistance. Conceived as true research protocols, these performances use time as a tool for observation, experience, and the production of situated knowledge. The body becomes simultaneously subject, medium, and investigative instrument.
Her work is also characterized by a participatory and community dimension, regularly involving local residents, associations, researchers, doctors, therapists, and local actors. The traces of her actions take the form of photographs, polaroids, videos, and installations that extend the symbolic and political impact of the performances.
Particularly attentive to ecological issues, the artist reflects on the ethics of materials used in her installations and performances. Animals present in some works come from rescue programs or are freed from intensive farming systems. Food used in her artistic devices is systematically redistributed to charities after exhibitions and performances, affirming a commitment to environmental and social responsibility.
Romina De Novellis is also the founder of Atelier Essenza, a transdisciplinary research and creation platform dedicated to care practices. This space brings together artists, researchers, doctors, and therapists around projects exploring the relationships between care, creation, ecology, transmission, and collective engagement. This initiative extends her interest in solidarity and community practices that run throughout her work. Her reflection on care also informs her research into individual and collective repair, intergenerational transmission, and resilience within marginalized communities.
Romina De Novellis has gradually established herself as one of the major figures in contemporary performance art in Europe. Among her most emblematic works is the Trilogy of Confinement, including La Pecora (2013–2022), a reflection on emotional confinement and psychological precarity in contemporary society; La Veglia, a domestic installation-performance denouncing the intimate sphere as a space of confinement; and La Gabbia, where the body embodies its own prison.
Other major works include Gradiva (2017), created in the Archaeological Park of Pompeii; Inferno (2015), presented at the Palais de Tokyo and the Venice Biennale; and The Last Supper (2021), which revisits notions of community and sharing in an ecologically depleted and exploited environment.
In recent years, De Novellis has presented several notable performances in major French art institutions. At the Centre Pompidou, she presented Star – 100% Italian origin (2024), a performance-installation based on long-term research conducted in Apulia, denouncing the exploitation of migrant workers in the Italian agri-food industry and the ecological consequences of intensive tomato production.
Her work has also been presented at major events such as Paris+ by Art Basel at the Jardin des Tuileries, where her performance Voulez-vous danser avec moi ? Merci, je ne préfère pas ! (2023) continued her exploration of Mediterranean identities, rituals, and ecofeminist issues in public space.
Between 2022 and 2023, the Jeu de Paume dedicated a cycle of performances to her entitled La Cultura che Vive, in which she reinterprets historical works of Arte Povera through a contemporary ecofeminist lens. These include Del maiale non si butta via niente (2022), where she locked herself in a pig farming cage to denounce control over female bodies and living beings; Il gioco della Campana (2022), a giant hopscotch mapping migratory routes between Africa and Europe; Volare oh oh, cantare oh oh oh oh (2022), reflecting on freedom and Neapolitan cultural heritage; and Bella Ciao (2023), a long-duration performance on resistance, ecology, and collective solidarity.
Her work has been presented in numerous leading international institutions and has received several awards and institutional supports. She is the recipient of the Carta Bianca Prize 2023 and has received support from EHESP for her research at the intersection of performance and anthropology.
She has participated in projects at institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, Jeu de Paume, Palais de Tokyo, MAC VAL, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Museo MADRE, Ca’ Pesaro, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, and Fondation Villa Datris. Her work has also been presented at international events such as FIAC Hors les Murs, the Poznań Biennale, and Something Else Off Cairo. Her works are now part of several public and private collections in Europe.
Field research plays a central role in her practice. She has developed much of her work through artist residencies in Europe and the Mediterranean, notably at Fondation Camargo in Cassis and Fondation RAMDOM in Italy. In 2019, she founded Domus Artist Residency in Galatina, an international residency program for artists and curators.
Alongside her artistic activity, Romina De Novellis is also deeply engaged in teaching. She teaches at the Sorbonne School of Arts and regularly lectures in art schools, universities, and academic institutions across Europe, the United States, and North Africa.
Her work is increasingly oriented toward documentary filmmaking and screenwriting. She is currently developing her first documentary film project on performance, linking the phenomenon of tarantism with the history of performance art.
She is also developing a feature film project in collaboration with Ghada Hatem, founder of the Maison des femmes, and Professor Yvonne Muller, focusing on coercive control in abortion pathways and contemporary regulation of bodies and reproductive choices.
Her work has been the subject of several publications, notably Mediterraneo (2019), her first monograph published by Alberta Pane Gallery, which brings together a decade of performances and an interview with Elisabetta Barisoni, director of Ca’ Pesaro Museum.
Her work is regularly studied in academic research (master’s theses, doctoral dissertations) and she has contributed to numerous scientific publications in anthropology, gender studies, performance, political ecology, and contemporary art practices.
Through her research, publications, and artistic projects, she develops a reflection on contemporary forms of domination, collective narratives, and processes of cultural transmission that now inform her writing.