The Cube, Nadja Verena Marcin

The Cube, Nadja Verena Marcin contributes to a collective reflection on memory, interdependence, and the shifting conditions of social and artistic life. Installed at the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, the work unfolds within a network of 154 participating artists, each engaging with notions of fragility, resonance, and relational structures.

The Cube (2026) is a sculptural video work composed of aluminum, 3D resin print, human hair, and embedded screens. A life-sized, cyborg-like skull—based on the artist’s own CT data and fitted with a real-hair wig—rests on an aluminum base. Monitors embedded in its eye sockets display audiovisual fragments from Marcin’s earlier performance The Cube (2017), creating a layered interplay between past and present, body and artifact, individuality and collective experience.

The video excerpts depict a performance staged on the roof of a former farmhouse, now part of Denniston Hill’s artist residency. Moving across the rooftop, Marcin recites a poetic text that reflects on the tension between resistance and the desire for stability—particularly in relation to historically gendered roles and expectations. The work culminates in a leap into a historic firefighter’s rescue net, held collectively by participants below, marking a transition from individual action to shared responsibility.

More Artwork by Nadja Verena Marcin