Cristina Kristal Rizzo’s residency at Scuola Piccola Zattere is structured around three public encounters, conceived according to a rhythm intended to be generative within the context of artistic research.

The first, curated by Lucia Amara and Giorgio Maria Cornelio, is conceived as a duet revolving around the theme of grace from different perspectives, ranging from literature to aesthetics, from philosophy to popular culture. If the first encounter inaugurates and sets the dance in motion, the second, curated by Daniel Blanga Gubbay, proposes a writing-reading practice that moves from the elusiveness of dance toward a literary and imaginative texture of the performative. In the third and final encounter, the philosopher and traveler Paolo Pecere focuses on prehistoric rock paintings that, for the first time in human history, depicted the dancing gesture—images before which we are compelled to reinvent a hypothetical bodily posture of which no trace has survived.

Each encounter contributes materials and tools for engaging with the theme and practice of the archive. The thread connecting the diversity of subjects and the plurality of approaches across the three public events lies in the distinctive relationship that the invited thinkers maintain with modes of thought production: a hybrid practice between theory and praxis, in which language sustains a singular engagement with the body. It is a condition of intensity that calls into play both presence and the potential for exposure.