Mariaemanuela Messina

Mariaemanuela Messina is an award-winning writer, researcher, and curator. She has worked in the media industry, fashion, television, art and sound curating in the UK, and in Italy.

She is the author of 'CINEMA.MODA Il cinema e la moda tra filmico e sociale' (Rome, 2011) an academic book related to the symbiotic relationship between cinema and fashion.

From 2012 her essay is textbook at university, including Bologna University and Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli, in Italy.

In 2007 she won the 'International Prize Filippo Sacchi', organised by SNGCI, at the 65th Venice Film Festival - La Biennale.

Mariaemanuela’s publications have been placed in fashion and media studies. Her projects have been presented on different media platforms, international symposia, on-line magazines and academic journals, including The Journal of Dress History (UK, 2019), University of Bedfordshire (UK, 2018), Goldsmiths University (UK, 2015), Goldsmiths Textile Collection & Constance Howard Gallery (UK, 2015), Spazio Zone Moda - Italian Fashion Studies (Bologna University, Italy, 2013), Radio RAI (a radio program ‘Le Consequenze della Moda’, Rome, Italy, 2013) and many more.

She has curated art and music events within multidisciplinary practices, involving installations, experimental music, electronic, noise, industrial and audio-visual live sets.

She holds a post-graduate qualification in Fashion Studies from The Departments of Design, Media and Communications from Goldsmiths University (London, UK) and a Bachelor's Honours Degree in Drama, Art, and Music Studies - Curriculum Cinema - Faculty of Letters and Philosophy from Alma Mater Studiourum, Bologna University, Italy.

The core of her interdisciplinary work focuses on the construction of contemporary subjectivity and the representation of the body in relation to cultural spaces. Regarding her specific areas of research interest, she is drawn towards subjects such as: Identity, objects, and hybrid cultures; She is interested in the way visual material informs and influences the process in which we understand and represent the present and ourselves; The themes of identity and the body within the contemporary scenario, characterised by instability and social complexity, in which identities are constructed as appearance, and individuals are free to change adopting a variety of configurations within bodily and cultural hybridizations.

Originally from Milan, Mariaemanuela has been based in London since 2010.