Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

<a href="https://www.monash.edu/arts/graduate_research" onclick="target='_blank';">https://www.monash.edu/arts/graduate_research</a>

20102025

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Biography

I am an educator, a scholar, and an artist from Italy.

In my Education-focused role here at Monash, I integrate the study of language, literature, and history with the study of the creative arts, art history, popular cultures, and media. Together with my students, I investigate how languages perform within cultures and vice versa, and explore notions of identity and nationhood in Italy and Europe through the lens of the performing and visual arts, and creative practices. My classes focus on the link between Italy and the rest of Europe, Australia, and beyond, emphasising the relationship between past and present, traditions and contemporaneity. This approach enables the analysis of phenomena such as migration, nation-building processes, and gender performance from both a local and a global perspective, through a variety of mediums (from literature to images to music). 

My work as an educator and content-developer is informed by my research at the nexus between Italian and migration studies, performance studies (theory and practice), and art (]history, theory, and practice). As an expat obsessed with the humans-space relationship and the socio-political aspect of art, I currently research on the body-place relationship, identity and sense of belonging as permeable processes, through a interdisciplinary and phenomenological approach.

I have taught Italian language, history, art history, and culture for +15 years at Italian and Australian Institutions, including at the Italian Institute of Culture in Melbourne and at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin. I have extensive experience teaching in Primary and Secondary Education as well, to students of diverse social and cultural backgrounds and abilities, including special-need students. Empathy and the human touch are core aspects of my teaching approach, which is informed by my knowledge of embodied practices and performative strategies. 

Formally trained in visual and performing arts, art history, theory and critic at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts (IT), I have then completed my PhD at Monash University (Centre for Theatre and Performance) in 2019 with a practice-led thesis in performance art. I have presented my work internationally over the years, including at BOAA – Biennale of Australian Art, Daegu Art Factory (SK), the MAXXI Museum in Rome (IT), and the 12th Istanbul Biennial (TK). I have been participating actively in major international conferences in the fields of Italian and migration studies, performance studies, education and pedagogy, and the creative arts. These include PSi - Performance Studies International conferences, ACIS Australasian Centre for Italian Studies conferences, the Diaspore Italiane symposia, LaSalle Performance Pedagogy & Practice conference, TaPRA Conferences. 

In 2023-2024, I held "The P.R.omised Land - New Italians in Australia" at CO.AS.IT. Museo Italiano in Naarm/Melbourne (VIC), a solo exhibition and interactive cultural project on the contemporary Italian diaspora down under. The project was supported financially by CO.AS.IT. and the Monash Arts LLCL School, and endorsed by Monash Arts, the University of Western Australia, YMAP, and Edith Cowen University. In 2022, I was the first artist ever to be invited to perform at the 11th Australasian Centre for Italian Studies ACIS Conference in Boorloo/Perth (WA). In 2021, I curated an exhibition of Australian performance artist Stelarc at the University of Biesko-Biala (PL), where I was a key-note speaker in 2022 at the 3rd International Conference "Theatricality and Antitheatricality", in collaboration with the University of Buenos Aires, RA. 

I am currently part of the educational pilot project PhotoVOICE in collaboration with colleagues from Monash Australia, Monash Prato, and the University of Padua (IT). I am also part of the European Languages (EL) Decolonising the Curriculum Working Group, and the EL Educational Project for Students' Engagement and Recruitment Working Group. Before, I have worked extensively as a researcher and a curator in interdisciplinary, community-engaged art projects both in Europe and Australia, in partnerships with institutions such as the Polytechnic of Turin (Architecture), UniCredit Bank (IT/DE), the Italian Ministry of Justice, and the City of Melbourne. Since 2019, I am a member of the Brimbank Arts Advisory Committee for Public Art & Community Engagement (Brimbank City Council, VIC).

My interest in making socially-engaged, site-specific art within communities reflects in my research: I have published internationally on performance and public art, artivism, embodiment, documentation, and audience reception. I just published my first monograph with Routledge (2025), The Ecology of the Performance Art Process, with the financial support of the LLCL School (Education Grant), and the ACIS Publishing Grants Scheme Award (2023).

I am a registered supervisor willing to supervise as Associate and serve as an external examiner. 

 

 

Research interests

Italian Studies; European Studies; Teaching & Learning Methodologies; Performance Studies; Performance Art & Embodied Practices; Practice-as-Research (PaR); Art History; Fine, Visual, and Performing Arts; Art & Activism (artivism); Space & Place Studies; Migration Studies; Participatory & Interdisciplinary Research. 

Monash teaching commitment

ATS1222 - Italian Introductory 2 (coordination and teaching)

ATS2223 - Italian Intermediate 1 (coordination and teaching)

ATS2224 - Italian Intermediate 2 (coordination and teaching)

ATS2225/3225 - Italian Proficient 1 (development, coordination, and teaching)

ATS2226/3226 - Italian Proficient 2 (development and teaching)

ATS3269 - European Languages Advanced 1 - Italian Studies (development and teaching)

ATS3271 - European Languages Advanced 2 - coordination (Italian Studies, development and teaching)

ATS3069 - European Languages Advanced 3 - Italian Studies (development and teaching)

ATS3294 - European Languages Project - Italian Studies (supervision)

ATS2213 - Imagining Europe - Italian Studies (development and teaching)

ATS3293 - Power, place and people: European legacies, global resistance, and transculturation - Italian Studies (development and teaching)

 

 

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 4 - Quality Education
  • SDG 5 - Gender Equality
  • SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
  • SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Education/Academic qualification

Theatre and Performance, PhD, Analysising the PErformance Art Process Through Union and Fragmentation: an Offer, MONASH UNIVERSITY

23 Feb 201513 Nov 2019

Award Date: 13 Nov 2019

Visual and Performing Arts, MA, Dov'e' Casa? (Where is Home?), Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Torino (Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin)

Award Date: 19 Mar 2012

Fine Arts and Art History, Academic Diploma (Hons), Verso la Dea: l'Archetipo Femminile dalle Origini all'Arte Contemporanea (Toward the Goddess: the Feminine Archetype from the Origins to Contemporary Art), Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Torino (Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin)

Award Date: 22 Oct 2007

External positions

Arts Advisory Committee Member, Brimbank City Council

1 Sept 2019 → …

Guest lecturer, Melbourne Italian Institute of Culture

Mar 2018Jun 2018

Italian Culture and Language (L2) Teacher (Italian Studies) , Melbourne Italian Institute of Culture

Jan 2018Jun 2018

Italian Art, Culture, Language (L2) Teacher (Italian Studies) , Trustee for CR & RO Guarnuccio Family Trust (trading as Centre of Italian Studies)

Sept 2014Jul 2016

Art Tutor, Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Torino (Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin)

Nov 2011Oct 2013

Appointed Teacher, Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca (Italy) (Ministry of Education, Universities and Research)

Sept 2004Jan 2014

Research area keywords

  • Art History
  • Art Theory
  • Italian Studies
  • European Studies
  • Performance Art
  • Performing Arts
  • Visual Arts
  • Fine Arts
  • Continental philosophy
  • Phenomenology
  • Space & Place
  • Migration Studies
  • Practice as Research
  • Practice-based research
  • Language & Culture
  • Bodies
  • Improvisation
  • Learning and Teaching
  • Performance Studies

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or