Elisa Giardina Papa: She Flickered In and Out of History / video installation
11.6.–14.6.2026.
On Thursday, 11 June, at 6:00 PM, the temporary video installation She Flickered In and Out of History (2026) by Italian artist Elisa Giardina Papa will open at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Using the medium of moving images, the artwork explores geological, mythological, and political temporalities of the Mediterranean, recounting the tale of an island that emerged from and disappeared into the sea. In 1831, an underwater volcanic eruption gave rise to a basalt formation between Tunisia and Sicily, sparking a violent sovereignty dispute among European powers. Five months later, the island vanished beneath the surface.
She Flickered In and Out of History leaps between the historical and the speculative to meditate on the illuminatory potential of an island that refused to be annexed. Filmed on Mount Etna, Stromboli, and the submerged slopes of Mediterranean volcanic islands, the cinematic scenarios leave historical actors and accounts outside the frame.
The work forms part of a trilogy of video installations exploring forgotten Mediterranean histories that challenge given understandings of borders and belonging. It follows U Scantu: A Disorderly Tale (2022), which premiered at the 59th Venice Biennale.
She Flickered In and Out of History will remain on display at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka until 14 June.
The project is supported by the Italian Council program (2024) promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
BIO
Elisa Giardina Papa’s research-based art practice seeks forms of knowledge and desire that have been disqualified and rendered nonsensical by hegemonic demands for order and legibility. Through critical yet poetic framing, she works across large-scale video installation, experimental films, as well as ceramic and glass sculptures, to draw attention to those parts of our lives which remain radically unruly, untranslatable, and incomputable.
Her work has been exhibited and screened at the 59th Biennale di Venezia, MoMA, the Whitney Museum, Gropius Bau, ICA London, Vienna Secession, HKW Berlin, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2018, the 6th Buenos Aires Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento, among others.
Giardina Papa received an MFA from RISD, a PhD in Film and Media Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and is an Assistant Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. She lives and works in New York and Sant’Ignazio, Sicily.
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