I create artworks about the narrative impulse and about how emotions and behaviors—especially those tied to reproduction, work and survival—intersect with political and ecological systems. I’m interested in how feelings and the stories we tell ourselves are shaped by culture, personal histories, and living environments. My current focus is on what it feels like to live inside structures that keep us numb or stuck, and what it might take to transition to different ways of feeling and acting. Zen principles and practices influence how I think about emotions, time, and improvisation. I’m drawn to exploring altered states of mind as a way of revealing new potentials for sensing, relating, and imagining.
My work spans writing, sound, video, and performance. I think of my performances as invitations to enter shared affective spaces. They are immersive, collaborative, and often improvised, using humor, rhythm, and repetition to shift perception.
I see writing as a process of attunement, something that can temporarily land on a page but ultimately lives in the voice, in the act of saying what is overlooked, repressed, or uncomfortable. I’m drawn to the edges of language, where it becomes rhythm, vibration; something felt in the body before the secretarial part of the mind has had a chance to file it away in the proper folder.
Valentina Vella is an artist, performer, and poet born in Rome and based in Rotterdam. She holds an MA in English literature from Roma Tre University and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Media from Columbia College Chicago. She was a CAA professional development fellow in 2014. She has performed at La Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Links Hall in Chicago, and at Vrooom, Varia and Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam.
