MARCO G. FERRARI – ARTIST
PORTFOLIO––SELECTED WORKS
writer, director, cinematographer, editor (video/sound)
2025
PORTA MAGGIORE, 2017-forthcoming May 2025, single-channel (180 min) and two-channel hd video (90 min).
Within a circle a triangle attempts to break free from a square: Told through the lens of a fable, the semi-documentary film follows a director’s search for a story while he scouts exterior film locations in the suburban landscapes of Roma Est. His journey begins near Cinecittà, a once popular commercial film studio on the eastern edge of the city, and moves towards the eastern entrance to the city, Porta Maggiore, an ancient Roman gate formed by eight meeting aqueducts. As he travels cyclically exploring the potential locations, political, environmental and social situations in the form of stories are revealed, stirring personal struggles in the form of dreams to come to the surface. Anchoring the journey is the discovery of the central location of the film––Lago Ex Snia, a recent naturally formed lake and ecosystem created through accidental and illegal human intervention, located within an abandoned viscose factory complex. This encounter and the interaction with the community that tries to protect the lake against further commercial development ultimately changes the filmmaker’s course, putting into question the limits of his craft, his identity as director and the nature of transformation.
Porta Maggiore is a five-part (Film Course, Film, Nocturnal Projections, Community Action, and Solo Exhibit) interdisciplinary art project, generated by the production of a film that explores the relationship between the built and natural environments of the eastern periphery of the Roman suburbs, known as Roma Est. The work is informed by a series of interrelated enquiries including an attempt to link the spectacle of filmmaking to the process of individuation; a search for liminal spaces of the periphery and the sense of alienation behind them; to question the forms of resistance and acceptance within the process of change; and the desire to find unity between the individual and collective in a supposed ‘post-fascist’ culture. Read more…
2020
LE OPERAIE DELLA VISCOSA DI ROMA—OMAGGIO A UN MONUMENTO NATURALE (PER UNA SCENA DI PORTA MAGGIORE): PROIEZIONE NOTTURNA ESTRANEA N. 6; SULLA STRUTTURA DI CEMENTO (MOSTRO) NEL LAGO BULLICANTE EX SNIA, June 15, 2020, hd video projector, facade of abandoned concrete structure, silent, image size approx. 15 x 20 x 10 m, 120 min (loop), Lago Bullicante Ex Snia, Rome, Italy.
Within the production of the film Porta Maggiore (forthcoming spring 2025) there are 14 public nocturnal projections, which were recorded and treated as scenes in the film. Each video projection is different and represents the director’s dreams, reflecting images of organic forms that try to have a dialogue with the location. Read more…
2020
SIRENII (PER UNA SCENA DI PORTA MAGGIORE): PROIEZIONE NOTTURNA ESTRANEA N. 5; LATO DEL PALAZZO DI VIA BRACCIO DA MONTONE 62, ROMA, CON MUSICISTI IGOR LEGARI (CONTRABBASSO) E GIACOMO ANCILLOTTO (CHITARRA ELETTRICA), February 14, 2020, hd projector, side of residential building on via Braccio da Montone 62, Rome, Italy, live sound featuring musicians Igor Legari (double bass) and Giacomo Ancillotto (electric guitar), Image size approximately 15 x 20 m, 30 min, projected from via Gentile da Mogliano 29, Rome, Italy.
Within the production of the film Porta Maggiore (forthcoming spring 2025) there are 14 public nocturnal projections, which were recorded and treated as scenes in the film. Each video projection is different and represents the director’s dreams, reflecting images of organic forms that try to have a dialogue with the location. Read more…
2019
STELLA, POLIPO, ANEMONE AND PAGLIACCIO (PER UNA SCENA DI PORTA MAGGIORE): PROIEZIONE NOTTURNA ESTRANEA N. 4; NELLA ‘STECCA’ CENTRALE DEL COMPLESSO DI CASE POPOLARI IACP (ORA ATER) DI VIALE GIORGIO MORANDI, TOR SAPIENZA, December 8, 2019, 5:00-7:00 pm, hd video projector, external building complex hallway, silent, image approx. 10 x 15 x 15 m, 120 min, loop, Case popolari IACP (ora ATER) di Viale Giorgio Morandi, Tor Sapienza, Rome, Italy.
Within the production of the film Porta Maggiore (forthcoming spring 2025) there are 14 public nocturnal projections, which were recorded and treated as scenes in the film. Each video projection is different and represents the director’s dreams, reflecting images of organic forms that try to have a dialogue with the location. Read more…
2019
DELFINI (PER UNA SCENA DI PORTA MAGGIORE): PROIEZIONE NOTTURNA ESTRANEA N. 3; SULL’ACQUEDOTTO FELICE, VIA DEL MANDRIONE, November 28, 2019, 5:00-7:00 pm, hd video projector, Torre Felice aqueduct, silent, image approx. 10 x 15 m, 120 min, loop, Via del Mandrione 390, Rome, Italy.
Within the production of the film Porta Maggiore (forthcoming spring 2025) there are 14 public nocturnal projections, which were recorded and treated as scenes in the film. Each video projection is different and represents the director’s dreams, reflecting images of organic forms that try to have a dialogue with the location. Read more…
2019
MEDUSE (PER UNA SCENA DI PORTA MAGGIORE): PROIEZIONE NOTTURNA ESTRANEA N. 2; NELLA PRATERIA DEL LAGO BULLICANTE EX SNIA, October 13, 2019, sunset, single-channel, hd video projector, field/trees/bushes, silent, image approx. 10 x 15 m, 120 min, loop, via di Portonaccio 230, Lago Bullicante Ex Snia, Rome, Italy.
Within the production of the film Porta Maggiore (forthcoming spring 2025) there are 14 public nocturnal projections, which were recorded and treated as scenes in the film. Each video projection is different and represents the director’s dreams, reflecting images of organic forms that try to have a dialogue with the location. Read more…
2018
LE API DEL LAGO BULLICANTE EX SNIA (PER UNA SCENA DI PORTA MAGGIORE): PROIEZIONE NOTTURNA ESTRANEA N. 1; Palazzina della Csoa Ex Snia, October 13, 2018, 7:30–9:30 pm, hd projector, two pvc screens 3.5 x 11 m. each, bench, scaffolding, silent, image approx. 7 x 11 m., 120 min, loop, Palazzina, Csoa Ex Snia, via Prenestina 175, Rome, Italy.
Within the production of the film Porta Maggiore (forthcoming spring 2025) there are 14 public nocturnal projections, which were recorded and treated as scenes in the film. Each video projection is different and represents the director’s dreams, reflecting images of organic forms that try to have a dialogue with the location. Read more…
2017–18
IMMAGINE SPARITA, 2017–18, audiovisual performance, 30 min approximately, featuring Giacomo Ancillotto (guitar, electronics); Marco G. Ferrari (video projections); Igor Legari (double-bass); Ludovica Manzo (voice, sampler); Lulu Shamiyya (spoken word); Luca Venitucci (accordion, electronics).
“L’immagine sparita” (The Vanished Image) is an audiovisual performance that reflects on the collective “commons” of a once revolutionary time and place and the process of its commodification. Combining spoken word, improvised music and live video mixing, the performance pulls from a video archive of Syrian peaceful activists who became self-taught image-makers. Read more…
Logos–Festa della Parola 2017: Rivoluzione, Csoa Ex Snia, Parco delle Energie, via prenestina 173 – 175, Rome, Italy, October 13, 2017. Group Exhibit, included the projection performance of “Pensa” and “Imagine Sparita” with Marco G. Ferrari, Ludovica Manzo, Luca Venitucci, Giacomo Ancillotto, Igor Legari and Lulu Shamiyya.
2015–16
SPIRIT LEVEL, 2015–16, single-channel high definition color video, sound, 31:38 min, continuous play.
Peering through a tourist’s lens, Spirit Level is about a search for the particularities of what makes a place sacred and the residual artifacts of a vulnerable state of being. Filmed in Jaipur, New Delhi and Koliyak, India, during the fall of 2015, I focused on recording three locations that contained or promoted a holy site. Each place is interconnected through the substance of water: the filtered water within the swimming pool of a five star hotel in Jaipur; the collected water within the step-well of the Hazrat Nizamuddin ki Baoli in New Delhi; and the water flowing between the low and high tides of the Gulf of Khambhat, where the Nishkalank Mahadev Temple sits one-mile out at sea, approachable only during low tidal shifts. Read more…
2015–16
IMPROVISED AUDIOVISUAL PERFORMANCES, 2015-16, in collaboration with the Rebuild Foundation at Stony Island Arts Bank, 6700 S. Stony Island Avenue, Chicago, Illinois USA and Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark, Chicago, Illinois USA.
May 4, 2015––featuring Jean-Luc Cappozzo (trompet, flugelhorn); Douglas R. Ewart (woodwinds, sound objects); Joëlle Leandre (double bass); Bernard Santacruz (double bass); Michael Zerang (drums, percussion); with special musical guest Yaw Agyeman and filmmaker Marco G. Ferrari (live hd video projection) 60 min. Read more…
November 5, 2015––featuring The Turbine (The Bridge #3) composed of Harrison Bankhead (double bass); Benjamin Duboc (double bass); Hamid Drake (drums, perc); Ramon Lopez (drums, table); with special guests John Nelson (percussion); George Schaefer (live 16mm film projection); and Marco G. Ferrari (live hd video projection) 60 min. Read more…
May 5, 2016––featuring Sylvaine Hélary (flutes, effects, voice), F. Lonberg-Holm (cello, effects), Ève Risser (piano), John Sutton (bass), Ben Lemar Gay (cornet/trumpet) & Marco G. Ferrari (live single-channel video projection), 60 min. Read more…
2015
NACELLE, 2015, single-channel high definition color video and 16mm b/w film transferred to hd video, sound, 35:00 min, USA.
The word “nacelle” means the streamlined car of an aircraft—from the Latin navicella, meaning “a little ship.” In the film Nacelle, I traced an idea in formation and the complexities that arise within a contained space as a vessel travels from point to point, where a movement from thought to feeling is cycled through. The first part of a trilogy, Nacelle is about a fictional B-roll film crew stuck in the back of a moving truck that travels across five Chicagoland locations: the Byron Nuclear Generating Station; a DeKalb Wind Turbine Farm; the Cook County Department of Corrections’ Division XI Facility; Lower Wacker Drive; and Miller Beach, Indiana. As the line producer, camera operator, soundman, driver and the locations interact, the fragility of their relationships is exposed, and a reaction is triggered. Sound and vision question, concept entangles, the environment informs, and intuition drives the picture. Read more…
Installation––Single-channel projection on pvc screen, steel pipe frame with straps and ropes, 6 x 10 ft, continuous projection, in Nacelle: a video art exhibition, Blanc Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA, 2015. Read more…
2015
SURFACES: GRAND CROSSING I, 2015, single-channel high definition color video, sound, 45 minutes.
I was a resident Film Fellow at Rebuild Foundation’s Black Cinema House from December 2014–June 2015, where I managed, co-curated and participated in screenings, discussions and events. The culmination of this fellowship was Surfaces, a community based film project that offered free video workshops for neighborhood residents. The film is a poetic reflection of the Chicago’s Grand Crossing neighborhood made up of street images and interviews. I projected the film onto the Saint Laurence School, an abandoned building in the neighborhood, at sunset on June 21st, 2015 (Father’s Day and Summer Solstice) where it looped continuously until midnight. Read more…
Projection––Single-channel projection, 20 x 40 ft., continuous projection, Saint Laurence School building, Grand Crossing, Chicago, IL, USA 2015. Read more…
