The question of truth as a construct forms the impulse behind my artistic work. I am interested in moments of emancipation: liberations from historical, scientific, or emotional narratives that are held within canonised or instrumentalising structures. Precisely where meanings begin to tip, my artistic practice begins.
Video, text, object, language and site are movable modules that are arranged in different set-ups. In this way, worlds come into being – ‘para-fictions’ of archaeological findings, incomplete and open to alternative readings. The titles provide the conceptual foundation of my projects. They are both unwieldy and precise, opening spaces for thought and imagination.
My work resembles a growing archive of fragments, relations and shifts in meaning. It forms a system in which the objects function as evidentiary artefacts of a created order. Truth is a space of possibility...
Manuela Johanna Covini, 2026
Next screening:
October 2026
@UNSEEN @Kunstdepot - Venice
curated by Amy Jackson
CLB-E01-DIGI/03
Image: Watering and Nurturing, 2025
SYNOPSIS:
On the shores of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, a meditative exploration of water as a living archive of creation begins. For the indigenous Tz’utujil Maya people, the lake is not merely a body of water, but a living being: the blood of the ancestors, the breath of the earth, a vessel of memories, prayers and untold stories.
A lyrical essay on the longing to understand the forgotten language of water once more – and an invitation to see the world through its eyes.
The film draws on the aesthetics of the past to pose a timeless question: how does one touch something that carries time within itself? What appears to be a historical document is, in fact, a tribute to the invisible – to the voices carried by the water, to the myths that lie dormant in its depths.
SYNOPSIS:
A meditative silent film about the invisible threads connecting all life. In the beginning was not the word, but the net—eternal, ravenous, pulsing with silent heartbeats. The first cell knows no "I", only a "we" found and lost in sharing. The world is not a riddle, but the rhythm of a song that began before us.
Words are the wounds of this tale. Medieval choral music underscores the imagery, carrying the silence of a story woven from unity, rhythm, and the memory of dust.