Artists

Edith Saldanha

Press release

The project “Skin Bodies” reflects, through video, costume, text, and sound, on the effects of institutional and structural violence on the performance and subjectivity of bodies.

The point of departure for this exploration is the two-channel video installation SKIN.BODIES I (2024, 17 min 32 sec) by video artist, actor, and performer Edith Saldanha, in which the transformation of bodies under systemic coercion is made visible. At its center is the skin: as an archive of violence and memory, but also as a site of possible transformation.

Key theoretical references for SKIN.BODIES I include Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste and Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. Saldanha also drew inspiration from works by Grada Kilomba, ORLAN, Marvin M’toumo, as well as from pop-cultural references. The work was developed as part of a research project in New York. The stay in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a historically Black working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, as well as research conducted in particular at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, played a significant role in shaping the project.

The project is curated by Sophie Eisenried.

[Panel Discussion]
“Between Open Space and Market Logic”
The body in the tension between art and culture
Sunday, 18 January 2026, 7:00 PM