Cristina Lavosi: E non dono celeste

Through film and audiovisual installation, Cristina Lavosi examines the role of institutions in constructing dominant narratives, legitimizing unequal power relations, and imposing norms of living. Her projects often emerge from workshops, field research, and shared creative processes in which authorship is distributed and knowledge is co-produced.

Almanac is pleased to announce E non dono celeste (And not a celestial gift), her first solo show in Italy, which unfolds around two new participatory films conceived as stages within a broader artistic inquiry – two nodes in a constellation of practices exploring the punitive universe and contemporary visions of transformative justice.

In contrast to penal systems that often reproduce the very violence they claim to redress, transformative justice proposes a community-based framework for addressing conflict – one that seeks to confront the root causes of harm and foster collective responsibility, rejecting isolation and individual call-outs.

Continuously negotiating her position as artist, director, and facilitator, Lavosi gathers practices and reflections from groups experimenting with less hierarchical and more transparent relational forms, without concealing their limits and contradictions. The works retain an imaginative dimension intertwined with the concreteness of inner work and reciprocal listening.

Cinque lire di stelle (Five lire worth of stars) emerges from the artist's collaboration with ULIT, a collective, of which Lavosi is a member, engaged in research and self-education on transformative justice and conflict facilitation. The film work brings together documentation and filmic experimentation to convey the practices, questions, and attempts of a group reflecting on how to build responsible communities capable of resisting punitive culture. 

The video makes visible a work that is often a quiet and daily one, built on practices of listening, mediation, and small gestures capable of redefining relationships. Emblematic is the tuning fork that runs through the work and the exhibition space as both symbolic and sonic device: an instrument for “bringing voices into tune,” but also a metaphor for the effort required to build trust and sustain spaces able to hold vulnerability, conflict, and error.

To create Cos’altro, cos’altro c’è nella città gioiosa? (What else, what else belongs in the joyous city?), Lavosi worked from the short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin with a group of adolescents and young adults from the MaTeMù popular school in Rome’s Esquilino district. The story—imagining a happy city founded on the suffering of a single segregated child—served as the starting point for a workshop developed with performer Sarah Silvagni and theatre educators Tamara Bartolini and Michele Baronio, structured around readings, collective discussion, theatrical practices, and writing. The process culminated in the production of a collective Super 8 short film, shot directly by the participants, who were involved in the film’s directing process.

The seating and modular elements of the exhibition were designed by Nicholas Sabena and Riccardo Cenedella to accommodate moments of activation throughout the show. During the exhibition period, we will host a reading group based on a selection of texts curated by ULIT, along with moments of collective reflection on the relationship between violence and security measures, in dialogue with activists and organisations active in the Turin area, in dialogue with activist groups based in Turin. The program will also include a facilitation workshop led by Giusi Palomba, a speculative fiction workshop conducted by Cristina Lavosi, and a theatre workshop developed in collaboration with Qu’ouïr, addressing themes of conflict and safety from feminist and queer perspectives. The exhibition seeks to serve as a catalyst for dialogue and learning, inviting individuals in different roles and positions to engage more deeply with the themes of transformative justice.

About Cristina Lavosi
Cristina Lavosi (1993, Italy) is a research-based visual artist and filmmaker living and working between the Netherlands and Italy. Her artistic research critically examines and reimagines dominant Western systems of political organization. She is particularly interested in unraveling institutional narratives of safety and order, and in challenging the limits they impose on our political imagination. Filmmaking becomes a site where these structures can be made visible, contested, and collectively reimagined. Through participatory world-building and collective speculation, her work seeks to cultivate forms of togetherness that challenge dominant orders while envisioning alternative social imaginaries.

Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the British School at Rome (Italy), BAK - basis voor actuele kunst (Netherlands), Filmhuis Den Haag (Netherlands), Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (Germany), and Jatiwangi Art Factory (Indonesia). Her practice has received awards and funding from Dutch and Italian institutions such as the Mondriaan Fund, Stroom Den Haag, and SIAE. She is also co-founder of First Cut, an artist-run initiative that curates screenings of experimental video art with a socio-political focus.

About Almanac
Almanac is a non-profit organization committed to presenting the multiplicity of forms and languages of contemporary art. It operates as a curatorial platform for the research, development, and exhibition of artistic practices that engage with the complexities of the present. By fostering critical and interdisciplinary dialogue, Almanac supports social and educational action through art and promotes the growth of emerging artists. 

Credits
Films created in collaboration with: ULIT—Un Limone In tasca, Matemù, spazio giovani di CIES Onlus, Roma, Tamara Bartolini, Michele Baronio e Sarah Silvagni. Exhibition design: Nicholas Sabena e Riccardo Cenedella. Supported by: MiC and SIAE, as part of “Per Chi Crea” program. Cofunded by: Mondriaan Fund, Stroom Den Haag. Almanac is supported by: Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione CRT and Regione Piemonte.