Melanie Bonajo to Represent Netherlands at 2022 Venice Biennale with Immersive Video Installation

Melanie Bonajo, born in Heerlen in 1978, will represent the Netherlands at the 2022 Venice Biennale with a large immersive video installation created in collaboration with designer Théo Demans. The work will be housed in an ancient Venetian church, as the Netherlands has rented its official pavilion to Estonia. The installation aims to alter visitors' perspective by stimulating the senses, particularly touch and sight, provoking a subconscious awakening that prompts reflection on physical contact—often absent during the pandemic—and intimacy with one's own body. Bonajo states, 'With this project I want to redefine the priorities of the body as a vehicle for closeness and solidarity, cultivating contact and friendship as a form of activism. Feeling is a form of intelligence; I want to think through touch.' Her practice consistently examines the shifting relationships between humans, nature, and environment, exploring concepts of comfort (physical and moral), body acceptance, and community. Her work addresses freedom, equality, feminism, ecology, intimacy, and technology, often using sharp irony to confront social and cultural marginalization. She investigates how technological progress leads to alienation from self and others. Bonajo's work has been exhibited at Fondazione Prada, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Tate Modern, and Centre for Contemporary Art Warsaw.