Mariangela Ciccarello and Philip Cartelli

Nusquam is Mariangela Ciccarello and Philip Cartelli, who have worked together and separately since 2014, producing a trilogy of video work that chronicles geographic realities and imaginaries, with an emphasis on the Mediterranean. Nusquam’s (Latin for “no-place”) work organizes subjects in relation to one another across time and space, in contrast to “real-world” limitations that would otherwise prevent such proximity. Narratives proceed along multiple tracks–dominant and minor–with the latter gradually coming closer to the surface. The names or labels ascribed to places and people are central concerns throughout.

Formally, Nusquam’s work regularly mixes small gauge film with digital video, blurring the conscious and unconscious and the historical with the contemporary. In a similar way, while much of their work has a basis in past or present realities, they frequently introduce fictional and performative elements, disturbing the documentary impulse that can close off potential paths of invention (or reinvention). As part of this open-ended emphasis, collaboration is central to their process and practice. Nusquam has led production workshops in different countries in addition to currently teaching art and filmmaking at New York City (USA) and Athens (Greece) institutions, and, in 2017, they were the subject of a featured artist program and invited to curate a screening of other artists’ work at the Syros International Film Festival in Greece. Their work has been exhibited at Locarno, Edinburgh IFF, Ji.hlava IDFF, Torino Film Festival, Microscope Gallery, Halle Nord, Aegean Film Festival, Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema, Lucca Film Festival, Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival, and others.