Visual Research Practices Lunch Lecture: Giuseppina Santoro - HOMELIKE: House, Home and the Domestic

For our 4th lunch-lecture, we are delighted to introduce the work and research methodologies, of MA Fine Art Alumna and PhD Researcher Giuseppina Santoro.

Giuseppina’s practice is mainly three dimensional and maintains strong links with textiles, painting, ceramics, socially engaged teaching and performance. Her concerns lie in culture, identity and displacement attached to folk art practices. Her research interests are defined by an overarching concern with the significance of Sicilian folk art practices and the exploration of belonging within Anglo-Italian/ Sicilian homes and communities.

She is particularly interested in reflecting on how specific practices provide possibilities for deepening our understanding of how human beings engage with and relate to and/or express folk art practices in their daily lives. Artwork often begins with an auto ethnographical approach using found objects and materials from the everyday/domestic home. She also explores the overlaps and places of Witchcraft and the healing arts within them.  

“In my immigrant community the mother tongue, foods and everyday cultural practices are threatened especially with the increasing level of immigration, and now Brexit. When you are removed from your home, there are increased feelings of displacement and belonging to the out-group, even as a UK born second generation immigrant like myself. The feelings of displacement are becoming broader and I am amongst many in fear of losing cultural identity. There is a huge gap of knowledge on Sicilian culture and identity post 1950s in the UK, which I attempt to contribute to through my research project by exploring folk art practices in the domestic.” 

Giuseppina lives and works in Peterborough. She has shown work across the UK and Internationally, in Northern Cyprus and Sicily. In 2014 she founded ICAP: Italian Community Arts Project supported by Arts Council England. Her art practice, exhibiting and teaching covers schools, colleges and ICAP projects. She also runs outreach projects and specialist art workshops with Kettles Yard, University of Cambridge and has previously worked as a 3D art technician at Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge.

Event contact: veronique.chance@aru.ac.uk