For me, art is a tool for dialogue with the inner world and a means of understanding and dealing with the world around us. It is a mirror in which we can recognise ourselves and encounter others. It is a direct channel to the invisible, an expression of the unconscious and nourishment for the creative self.
My art
PAS | Performance Art Studies photo by Monika Deimling
The body: an instrument of struggle, a gateway to liberation.
My name is Chiara Marini Ferretti, a free subjectivity in becoming. I am a multidisciplinary artist and a theatre-therapist.
Performance art is my main artistic language; I create live and video site-specific performances, as well as documentaries and video art works.
The body is the fil rouge of my artistic practice. I believe that the BODY is the engine of a cathartic transformation—for those who experience it and for those who witness it. I am convinced that the body is fertile ground for change, revolution, and both individual and collective awareness.
My cinematic practice, just like my performative one, is a relational practice that works on encounter as a political act of transformation.
I mainly deal with themes such as threshold, belonging, home and relationship.
My works have been screened and performed in numerous national and international exhibitions and festivals. I have recently collaborated as a performer with prominent figures. I took part in the last retrospective of Marina Abramović in London at the Royal Academy of Arts (2023), and later (2024) I performed at Hangar Bicocca during the retrospective dedicated to artist James Lee Byars, further enriching my practice.
Education
After a background in the humanities, I specialized in documentary directing at the Luchino Visconti Film School in Milan and in Performing Arts. I create social documentaries and anthropological research films exploring themes related to the feminine, gender identity, and intimacy as a political act of social transformation.
In parallel with my film education, I specialized in Theatre Therapy at the Politeama Association in Colico, and in Photo Therapy with the SPEX method developed by Cristina Nuñez. I trained as a performer through the “Cleaning the House” method created by the renowned artist Marina Abramović, with whom I collaborated during her retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts in London (2023).
My education is ongoing, constantly enriched and reshaped through encounters with different collectives and movements in Italy and across Europe.
Art and Therapy – Art for Everyone
I believe in art for everyone, and for this reason I wish to bring it as a tool for growth to all those who desire it.
I discovered the profound connection between art and therapy, as well as my vocation to be a channel and a support in others’ personal discoveries. I lead personal growth journeys and multimedia workshops where bodywork and imagery intertwine, creating a powerful pathway to self-discovery.
Alongside my artistic practice, I also work in education: together with artist Marcella Vanzo, I co-leaded the performance art course “The momentary Now school of performance” at the cultural association ZonaK in Milan.
In addition, for the past two years I have been running cinema workshops for teenagers with the Cadà Association in Milan. Sensing the deep therapeutic implications of working with images, I merged the principles of theatre therapy with photography, and developed a therapeutic method that I call Psychosomatic Photography: Being Seen. It is a relational, arts-based personal growth journey. My work is founded on the belief that being seen is therapeutic, and the camera becomes my primary ally–mirror.
