Forum 62

Maria Grazia Rosin’s (Italian, b. 1958) fantastical glass creatures combine elements of science and science fiction. Grouped together in immersive installations, they evoke ambiguous worlds, part cosmic, part aquatic, that envelop and disorient the viewer and raise questions about the beginning of creation. Initially trained as a painter in Venice but working in glass since 1992, Rosin is fascinated by science, from marine biology to the physics of black holes, and her interests manifest in her art.

Light is an important part of Rosin’s work. She studies the latest lighting technology for her chandeliers—a quintessential Venetian glass form that she explodes out of its historical box with her innovative and thought-provoking designs. For centuries, Venice has been synonymous with glass and light. Rosin’s love of and experimentation with color and her investigation of light, both in the characteristics of translucent glass and in the technology she uses to illuminate her pieces, is completely at one with a city bathed in light and color.

Since 2003, Rosin has been grouping her creatures in ever-more complex arrangements, adding sound, by noted electronic musicians Visnadi and Camomatic, and then video to the installations to produce, in her own words, “a seductive sensory machine.” This nether world oscillates between the extraterrestrial and the subaquatic, the macro and the micro, and challenges us to think about our place in the universe.