Marinella Senatore – An Expanded Baroque Crown

Senatore will transform the Faena Cathedral with an inhabitable luminaria: a temporary architecture of light rooted in the traditions of public celebration in Southern Italy. Expanding the form of a Baroque crown, the installation will offer a space visitors can enter, move through and make their own. Participation is central to Senatore's practice. Her light installations are conceived as places for people to gather and act, rather than monuments reserved for distant observation. At Faena, she imagines a social plaza within the Cathedral, opening possibilities for encounters among visitors, hotel guests and Miami communities who might not ordinarily share that space. The crown will provide a setting for collective activity, hosting readings, dance, poetry, musical performances and other collective moments. The poetic phrase "the word community feels good" will sit around the perimeter of the crown, creating a space capable of containing many different identities, voices and possibilities. Senatore describes the language of her installations as emerging from years of work with communities, carrying those shared experiences into a new setting. As part of the community-driven aspect of her poetic work, Senatore will bring together special programming in collaboration with O, Miami. Marinella Senatore Says: "Participation is not only a way of working for me; it is a way of thinking. I'm interested in creating spaces where people can gather, take agency and feel that the work belongs to them. With An Expanded Baroque Crown, the idea is to create a social plaza inside the Cathedral—a place that can be activated by many different people, voices and forms of collective life." Marinella Senatore (b. 1977, Italy) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses light sculpture, tapestry, collage, drawing, film and large-scale participatory projects. In 2026, she was named Artist of the Year by the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GNAMC), Rome, where a major presentation of her work is on view throughout the year. Her work has been presented by major international institutions including Palais de Tokyo and Centre Pompidou, Paris; Kunsthaus Zurich; Museum der Moderne Salzburg; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum Villa Stuck, Munich; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; MAXXI and GNAMC, Rome; Castello di Rivoli; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn; CAPC Musee d'Art Contemporain de Bordeaux; Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal; and Queens Museum, New York. Senatore has realised major public commissions and site-specific projects for High Line, New York; Palazzo Strozzi, Florence; Millennium Park, Chicago; NOOR Riyadh; UCCA, Shanghai; Faena Forum, Miami; Southbank Centre, London; Amsterdam Light Festival; Nuit Blanche, Paris; Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Generali Foundation, Venice; Kunsthalle Mannheim; Stiftung Kunst und Natur, Nantesbuch; BAK, Utrecht; Kulturstiftung St. Moritz; and the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See, Rome, among others.