HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
MARTINA ZANIN
“With rubber boots for water; with a helmet for the falls; with a suit for the comfort.
When I moved the first step my foot was covered with mud – sticky but slippery mud; the brambles pulled my suit. When at the darkest point, I turned the light on, and there it was, in front of me, slightly illuminated – the unknown. Here I am inside its double. The Lessinia territory has something to hide. By walking on its lands, you end up in between opposites – the negative and positive side. Like a coin, you can choose head or cross. It’s a matter of attraction.
Its darkest side could be both the abyss and the maternal womb; while its opposite contains beautiful landscapes and tenebrous
secrets. These elements might be antithetical but they have something in common – they exist simultaneously. With my finger I
turned the light placed on the helmet on my head back off, with my eyes I could see a distant light; the more I walked the more
I was incapable of understanding what was before me. Then, the void.”
By playing with associations, perspectives and opposites, Hidden in Plain Sight wants to disorient the viewers and create mixed
feelings towards what they are looking at.
Hidden in Plain Sight takes as a starting point the experience and feeling of walking inside and outside of a cave – a common
characteristic of the karstic territory of Lessinia.
BIOGRAFIA
Martina Zanin is a visual artist, born in San Daniele del Friuli in 1994. She graduated with honors in Photography from Istituto Superiore di Fotografia in Rome and received a Master’s degree in Contemporary Photography from Istituto Europeo di Design in Madrid. She also studied Plastic Arts and Creative Writing. Zanin has been nominated for the Foam Paul Huf Award 2019 and the C/O Berlin Talent Award 2020. She is the winner of Camera Work 2021, Images Gibellina, and of Cantica21. Italian Contemporary Art Everywhere, supported by MAECI and MiC. Her work was shown in solo and group exhibitions in institutions, galleries, festivals, and no-profit spaces, at international level, among others IIC Abu Dhabi, Fann A Porter Gallery, FMAV – Fondazione Modena Arti Visive, BACO – Base Arte Contemporanea Odierna, Villa Brandolini, MLAC – Museo Laboratorio Arte Contemporanea, Cortona On The Move, Fotografia Europea, and Photo España. Her works are part of different public collections (FMAV, BACO, Biblioteca Panizzi, and Palazzo Rasponi II). In 2019 she was artist-in-residence at SAM Residency Program. Zanin is represented by studiofaganel in Gorizia, IT. She is the author of I Made Them Run Away published by SKINNERBOOX (2021), and Older Than Love a self-published publication about the homonymous multimedia installation.