Benedetta Castrioto
Work and Pause: on ants and cicadas, nature and culture, reality and magic
October 5, 2025
2 PM EST, Zoom
If you missed the Zoom, Benedetta’s talk is available here:
CULTIVATE is pleased to join curator and cultural producer Benedetta Castrioto for a discussion surrounding her research on the social and cultural dimensions of labour and “free” time in Western societies.
She will present insights from her time at Cultivate’s La Baldi Residency, summed up in the essay Magic à La Cigale – recently published on the Cultivate Journal. They revolve around the continuum between work and contemplation, the tension between nature and culture, and the political significance of meeting with others without an objective or a purpose, and for the simple reason of sharing time and space.
The discussion will seek to weave connections between this work and her broader curatorial research and projects, focusing, particularly, on a political conception of freedom as socially creative practice, and thinking about experimental approaches to curating that might represent an exercise of such freedom.
About Benedetta Castrioto:
Originally from Italy, Benedetta has been living and working in different parts of the world since 2011. She began her journey in the field of cultural production as the Program Manager of Zoma Museum, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She has since led and consulted on projects in Italy, the US, Ethiopia, and the UK. Currently, she is based in Accra, Ghana.
She has an M.A. in Arts and Cultural Enterprise from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and an M.Sc. in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics.
Her curatorial practice builds on the idea that how we do things matters just as much as what we do, and substantively influences the outcome of our work. She believes that the essence of curating is to build bridges, to connect ideas and people. To do that meaningfully, one has to interrogate the political and social dynamics of cultural production and fruition themselves.
She is passionate about multidisciplinary projects. In particular, she is interested in labor, social, and environmental justice. Central themes in her work have been Land and Environmental Art (with a focus on practices in the Global South), Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space, institutional critique, the politics and philosophy of labor, and material culture.
https://benedettacastrioto.com
If you missed the Zoom, Benedetta’s talk is available here: