VISUAL ARTIST, WRITER, THEORIST, ECOLOGIST, KNOWLEDGE PRODUCER
Born in Genoa/Italy/Europe, Lucia Prandi works and lives in Modena/Italy/Europe.
She starts drawing and painting at an early age. In her early teens she starts taking photographs.
At 18 years old she starts her ecologist activism with different national and international initiatives and campaigns, involving citizens in petitions and in requests of referendum for or against a series of issues: Amazonia Rain forest, Nuclear energy, Greenhouse effect and Climate Change, CFCs and hole in the ozone layer, Biological sustainable agriculture, Cetaceans, Illegal Tropical animals trade, Hunting rules. She reads the first Italian edition of The State of the world by the Worldwatch Institute, where she gets the necessary information to write a flyer which becomes the first Italian step for the campaign against the project of the building of a damaging road in Amazonia; the campaign leads to the cancellation of the World Bank economic support for that project. She supports the referendum against Nuclear energy in Italy, which results in an incontestable win. With number 04348, among the first million of signatures for the Greenpeace petition declaring the Arctic a global sanctuary, she becomes a defender of the Arctic and her name is in a capsule at the North Pole.
She attends the Scientific Lyceum – upper secondary school -. Best final exam in Italian about Environment among 100 students. Mark in Drawing and Art History: 9. Lyceum diploma mark: 54/60.
Then she attends the Clementina ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS in Bologna/MIUR-AFAM, where she has been studying Photography under Claudio Marra for three years and History and methodology of art criticism under Silvia Evangelisti. Selected artworks in the Academy engraving competition. She gets the Second level graduate diploma in Painting. Degree mark: 110/110 with Honours/Summa cum laude.
Thesis: Alberto Giacometti plays “ Waiting for Godot “ by Samuel Beckett. Music by Mauricio Kagel.
She meets Reinhold Hohl, Billie Whitelaw, Mauricio Kagel and later Lisa Dwan at the performance of the Trilogy by Samuel Beckett – Not I, Footfalls, Rockaby – directed by Walter Asmus.
Soon she starts working in the art field with different experiences.
As Rinaldo Rinaldi’s assistant scenographer at the Scenography Room in the Municipal Theatre in Modena, making scenery by Dario Fo, Lele Luzzati, Cesare Lievi, Francesco Calcagnini, Margherita Palli. As photography/concept work advertising consultant and style assistant for a fashion magazine. As drawing and art history teacher. As art writer, collaborating with Riga Books, Italian and international art magazines – Tema Celeste, NY Arts –.
The article Over the edges. The streetcorners of Ghent, about the exhibition Over the Edges, curated by Jan Hoet, appears in print on Tema Celeste, n.81. July/September, 2000 and online.
Her writing The tree appears in print in Alberto Giacometti, Riga 11, edited by Marco Belpoliti and Elio Grazioli, 1996, and Conversation with Joseph Kosuth is published in John Cage, Riga 15, edited by Gabriele Bonomo and Giuseppe Furghieri, 1998 and online; Riga books, directed by Marco Belpoliti and Elio Grazioli, Marcos y Marcos, Milano – now Quodlibet, Macerata/Roma -.
Meantime, she keeps on dealing with independent research in Visual Arts, focusing on Borderlines, Frontiers, Limits, Nature and Culture, Nature as a polysystemic whole, Language, Archive, Europe, Cartography, Territories, Ecology, Climate Change.
In 1998 she attends Thinking Art. Rules and Anarchy, a Philosophy and Art workshop, directed by Jean Baudrillard, Paolo Fabbri and Joseph Kosuth, at Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice.
In 1999 she starts the Art exhibition activity with solo/group exhibitions, site-specific installations and projects in Italy, France and Ireland. Among the artworks: Rectangles. Notebooks, a series of watercolours, Crossing the line, a photograph installation.
She is among the 3 young Italian artists selected in Italy by Luca Massimo Barbero for Environmental Art/ Pépinières européennes pour jeunes artistes – Pépinières européennes de Création -. She has been selected together with 10 young artists for a solo show at the Municipal Gallery in Modena/FMAV, for the series of exhibitions Passaggi Duemila/Passages Two Thousand.
In 2000 the site-specific installation In the shape of a ring, just by an historical medieval door of the Modena Cathedral, the performance Balancing. Hanging Labyrinth in the Chartres Cathedral and Marked sites. Limes inside/Solitarum limes aquarum are the main starting point of the long-term programme ICK/Isolating Connecting Knowledge/Project System.
In 2001 the documentation about her artwork is accepted by Via Farini/Milan and catalogued in the Political, Environmental and Conceptual art sections of the Artist Archive about Italian artists – now at Fabbrica del Vapore/Milan -. She is immediately invited to present it in a roundtable with Franco Vaccari.
Since 2001 she has been participating in international scientific workshops and she researches about Europe, Earth/Space Observation-Exploration-Technology, Universe, Nanotechnology, Biomimicry, Anthropocene Era, Ecology, Antarctica, Climate Change, Human Brain, Complexity; Visual Arts, Architecture, Design, Philosophy, Cartography, Literature, Language, Music, Dance, Fashion Design, Walking, Sport.
In the same year she starts conversations and/or collaborations with Italian/international scientists: John David Barrow, Marco Bersanelli/ESA, Stuart Bowyer/NASA, Alessandro Coletta/ASI, Ettore Colizzi/ESA, John Connolly, Paolo De Bernardis, Marc Drinkwater/ESA, Bradley Edwards/NASA, Enrico Flamini/ASI, Paolo Giommi/ASI, Sumio Iijima, Harold Kroto, Koryo Miura, Nicola Pugno, Carlo Rovelli, Gabriele Veneziano; the space architect Ondrej Doule; and with philosophers: Zygmunt Bauman, Marc Augè, others.
In 2001-2003 Lucia Prandi has been developing the research further while attending the Graduate Programme in Visual Arts/clasAV/Department of Arts and Design at the IUAV UNIVERSITY OF VENICE, dean Marco De Michelis and director Angela Vettese, being on the Laboratories by international artists, Classes by critics and curators and the Venice Utopia Seminar by Hans Ulrich Obrist with Stefano Boeri/IUAV/Department of Architecture. She has been studying with the artists Olafur Eliasson, Tobias Rehberger, Rirkrit Tiravanija, the photographers Guido Guidi, Stefano Graziani, the critics and curators Molly Nesbit, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Angela Vettese, the architects Stefano Boeri, Yona Friedman. Exams marks: 30 and 30 cum laude.
She plans and produces the projects: Utopia. Extremeline. Islands, 2001-2002; Utopia. Reality. Extremeline/The Questionnaire Project, 2002; To an islander/Venice Cube, 2002-2003; The Interplanetary Cable, 2002-2003; The Interplanetary Cable/Current Status Line, 2002-2008; Venice-Frisland, 2003; Fuzzy Lab Bag, 2003. She shows the installation and the performances Islands Connections/Earth, 2002.
In 2002 CUBE DIY/ICK – texts, installation, conversation with Alessandro Coletta – is hosted in the exhibition Do it For/With Someone Else at BLM/Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa and her photographs in Nice to see you, curated by Guido Guidi, at Linea di Confine, Reggio Emilia.
In 2003 she is invited as an artist at Utopia Station, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Molly Nesbit and Rirkrit Tiravanija at the 50th International Art Exhibition VENICE BIENNALE/Visual Arts, Dreams and Conflicts, The Dictatorship of the Viewer, directed by Francesco Bonami. She launches two projects with a speech and an event-performance at the Venice Arsenale, during the official opening.
The multiple work Islands Connections/Space-Cosmic Web consists of an artwork design – the flying disc Cosmic Web, referring to the just proven Cosmic Web Theory – for physical/conceptual interactions, a performance by the world champion of Acrobatic Frisbee Freestyle Tommy “Lightning” Leitner, two mobile installations with 400 freestyle frisbees Cosmic Web, a sound projection of Artemis satellite/ESA.
Venice-Frisland Lab at RAM/RadioArteMobile includes a Telephone Connection Italia/USA with Lucia Prandi’s interview to Brad Edwards on The Space Elevator – after the one at the Venice Utopia Seminar – and a Conversation between Lucia Prandi and Cecilia Casorati about the projects, work and performance. Interviews coordinated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Stefano Boeri and Chiara Parisi.
In 2003 her work appears in the special issue Version/The Map of the world, edited by Mircea Kantor, in Italian mapping: geographies and territories, by Anna Daneri.
In 2004, she gives a lecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bergamo.
In 2006 she participates in Big London Brainstorm, headline exhibition curated by Tom Dyckhoff and designed by Piercy Conner, at the 2nd LONDON ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE, Change, directed by Peter Achroyd. She exhibits the project Diamond Space Islands, dynamic large-scale structures floating in the London sky with butterfly wing iridescent transparent colours and advanced/extreme ecomaterials.
In 2006 she attends Fare Cinema/Making Cinema, a masterclass directed by the Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio.
In 2007-2008-2009 Lucia Prandi is invited to the 1st-2nd-3rd Conference on The Space Elevator and Carbon Nanotubes, organized by EUROSPACEWARD/European Spaceward Association in Luxembourg.
As the only participant artist, she presents performances, installations, the text Conversation-s Ribbon-s, 2007 and her main projects about The Space Elevator, among which the text and design for the special climber-s The Interplanetary Space Diamond Yo-Yo-s, 2009.
At the turn of the decade she writes a theoretical text/project about a cluster of ideas, hypothetically infinite: TSS/Map-s Vision-s Future-s, 2009-2013, unpublished.
Then she focuses on a series of photography projects, of which a related book and exhibition will appear in the near future: Il Luogo/The Place, 2000-2020, unpublished; Europe. Borderlines. Islands, 2002-2022, unpublished; The Aran Islands, 2003-2023, unpublished.
In 2021 she is invited to join the International Studio Programme of Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin in the near future.
Until now Lucia Prandi has been constantly taking photographs by her Hasselblad and Leica analog cameras and videos related to her research issues, and creating a kaleidoscope of projects and ideas.
Languages: Italian, English, Latin, German (basic)
Lucia Prandi’s artwork has been appreciated by:
Hans Ulrich Obrist, Molly Nesbit, Elena Filpovic, Angela Vettese, Marco De Michelis, Luca Massimo Barbero, Gabi Scardi, Anna Daneri, Gigliola Foschi, William Guerrieri, Stefano Pasquini, Hanna Redler Hawes; Rirkrit Tiravanija, Olafur Eliasson, Tobias Rehberger, Joseph Kosuth, Giulio Paolini, Luca Vitone; Guido Guidi, Stefano Graziani, Giovanna Silva, Marina Ballo Charmet; Zygmunt Bauman, Marc Augé, others.
During her artistic and cultural wanderings, Lucia Prandi meets:
Walter Bonatti, Claudio Clay Collerà, Tommy “Lightning” Leitner; Rinaldo Rinaldi, Lele Luzzati; Billie Whitelaw, Lisa Dwan; Mauricio Kagel, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Philip Glass; Gianni Celati, Marco Belpoliti, Reinhold Hohl; Joseph Kosuth, Giulio Paolini, Alberto Garutti, Olafur Eliasson, Tobias Rehberger, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Pierre Huyghe, Luca Vitone, Grazia Toderi, Building Transmissions, Darius Mikšys, Cesare Pietroiusti, Marina Abramović, Maurizio Cattellan, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Anish Kapoor, Jimmie Durham, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Richard Serra; Franco Vaccari, Guido Guidi, Stefano Graziani, William Guerrieri, Marina Ballo Charmet, Giovanna Silva, Francesco Jodice; Marco Bellocchio; Stefano Boeri, Yona Friedman, Rem Koolhaas, Renzo Piano, Ondrej Doule, Stefano Pansera; Achille Castiglioni, Enzo Mari; Silvio Ceccato, Paolo Fabbri, Jean Baudrillard, Georges Didi-Huberman, Franco Farinelli, Zygmunt Bauman, Marc Augé, Franco La Cecla; Paolo Giommi, Alessandro Coletta, Enrico Flamini, Paolo De Bernardis, Marco Bersanelli, Carlo Rovelli, Gabriele Veneziano, John David Barrow, Marc Drinkwater, Bradley Edwards, Nicola Pugno, Stuart Bowyer, John Connolly, Sumio Iijima, Harold Kroto, Koryo Miura, Fabiola Giannotti; Claudio Marra, Silvia Evangelisti, Elio Grazioli, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Jan Hoet, Angela Vettese, Marco De Michelis, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Molly Nesbit, Elena Filipovic, Ariane Beyn, Chiara Parisi, Francesco Bonami, Ute Meta Bauer, Gabi Scardi, Anna Daneri, Gigliola Foschi, Massimiliano Gioni, Hou Hanru, Evelyne Jonanno, Francesca Ferguson, Andrea Lissoni, Luca Cerizza, Lorenzo Benedetti, Kathryn Drake, Bergit Arends, Hanna Redler Hawes, Ūla Tornau, Jacob Lillemose, Tone Hansen, others.
WEB
LUCIA PRANDI
www.luciaprandi.it
LUCIA PRANDI – RIGA BOOKS
Riga n.11 Alberto Giacometti
http://www.rigabooks.it/index.php?idlanguage=1&zone=9&id=47
Riga n.15 John Cage
http://www.rigabooks.it/index.php?idlanguage=1&zone=9&id=260
http://www.rigabooks.it/index.php?idlanguage=1&zone=13&idnumero=260
LUCIA PRANDI – UTOPIA STATION / VENICE BIENNALE 2003
Lucia Prandi at Ram/Radioartemobile at Utopia Station 2003
Interview to Bradly Edwards/The Space Elevator by Lucia Prandi
Interview to Lucia Prandi by Cecilia Casorati http://www.radioartemobile.it/suoni/?nome=Prandi&txt=&settori=ram
https://www.radioartemobile.it/suoni/untitled-4/
LUCIA PRANDI – ITALIAN MAPPING / VERSION
Anna Daneri, Italian mapping: geographies and territories, p.26, in Version 4, The map of the world, by Mircea Cantor, 2003
VERSION 4 by VERSION magazine – issuu
https://issuu.com/versionmagazine/docs/version04
LUCIA PRANDI – EUROSPACEWARD/ European Spaceward Association 2007, 2008, 2009
Lucia Prandi, 2nd International Conference, EuroSpaceward, Luxembourg, 2008, Book of Abstracts, p.12
http://eurospaceward.org/PDF/SE_conference2008_collected_abstracts_Sat_6Dec08_Final_Version.pdf
Lucia Prandi, 3rd International Conference, EuroSpaceward, Luxembourg, 2009, Book of Abstracts, p.19-20
http://eurospaceward.org/PDF/Sat_5Dec09_Final_V2.pdf
ARCHIVES
LUCIA PRANDI – A JOHN CAGE COMPENDIUM
https://cagecomp.home.xs4all.nl/bibliography_k-p.html
LUCIA PRANDI – VIA FARINI ARTIST ARCHIVE https://www.viafarini.org/page/5/artist-archive/
LUCIA PRANDI – LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
ASAC – Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee/Historical Archive of Contemporary Arts
http://asac.labiennale.org/it/ricerca/index.php?c=p&s=Lucia+Prandi