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Stefano Dealessandri

wetenschap & techniek, video, Taal, residency, proces, printen (3D), Objecten, installatie, Experimenteel, Ecologie, DIY, Digitale technologie, Digitaal, Design, Conceptueel, Archieven, Analytisch

Stefano Dealessandri is a research-driven artist who uses humor and instability as tools for critical inquiry and playful speculation. Working across installation, film, and collaborative research, Dealessandri creates spaces that embrace tension and resist closure. His projects move through hybrid contexts — from the subtle exoticism of synthetic grass in German DIY stores, to the gamified museification of Venice under tourism-driven economies, to Dutch marshlands resurfacing as ghosts of colonial reclamation. Each work probes the tensions between perception and production, revealing how meaning is continuously distorted, commodified, and reimagined. Grounded in this approach, Dealessandri's broader practice extends into curatorial and collaborative work. He has been artist-in-residence at Fabrica Research Center and studied Communication Design at HAW Hamburg, Architecture at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, and earned an MFA in Non Linear Narrative from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, supported by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service). From 2019 to 2023, he was part of the curatorial team at Frappant Galerie in Hamburg and, in 2023, collaborated with filmmaker Carlos Casas on the artistic direction of Venezia Fabrica Futura, presented as part of the Fuori Biennale in Venice. His work has been exhibited internationally, including the Rotterdam Design Biennale (2025), Hot Docs (Toronto, 2024), re:publica (Hamburg, 2024), and the Fondazione Querini Stampalia (Venice, 2024). In 2025, his short film J'adore Venise received the Prix du Jury at the Grain Urban Festival in Paris.

AnAmphibious Retreat
AnAmphibious Retreat - “AnAmphibious Retreat” explores processes of vilification and re-evaluation of wetlands—transitional zones between land and water that resist rigid categorization. The project focuses particularly on the Netherlands, a country historically shaped by the drainage of wetlands, now reconsidering the reintegration of these very environments. Central to this investigation are the themes of ambiguity, instability, and decay. The project engages with the fluid meanings of “retreat”—both as a withdrawal from deeply-rooted beliefs, and as a space for study or leisure. Through a visual essay, it reimagines amphibious environments as sites of experimentation, critical inquiry, and ecological transformation. The work unfolds through an open-ended adaptation of the “Goose Game,” a 16th century board game originally from Italy, using its cyclical structure as a playful journey through the evolving meanings and layered histories of Western understandings of wetlands. On a material level, a process of decay and transformation is triggered by scratching the sealed surfaces of traditional Delft Blue ceramics, which depict images of extractive colonial dominion over the environment. On top of this, the ephemerality of the materials used, such as 3D-printed bioplastic, degradable in marine environments, and water-soluble blue ink, reflects the instability and transience of both this research and the environments being considered. “AnAmphibious” functions as a deliberate linguistic glitch, suggesting both an indefinite article and a prefix of negation. It gestures toward the project’s core skepticism: can amphibious logics truly infiltrate systems historically designed to oppose them?
Glasseaweedware
Glasseaweedware - Glasseaweedware hijacks 16th-century Façon de Venise glassware—luxury objects once exported from the Low Countries as imitations of Venetian craft and symbols of power. Their coral- and seaweed-like aesthetics, once exoticized and commodified, are reactivated not as decoration but as critique. Instead of glass, dissolvable bioplastics—alginates and PHAs produced by microbes—become the medium. These vessels are designed to soften, collapse, and disappear, rejecting permanence in favor of cycles of decay, transformation, and multispecies co-making. Craft, in this sense, is not about mastery or timelessness, but about exposing fragility, dependency, and ecological entanglement. The next step pushes this logic further: a hybrid filament for 3D printing, made of PHA and mussel shells scavenged from Venice’s tourist restaurants. Waste is recoded into material; the lagoon city, exploited as spectacle, is folded back into the very objects it inspired.
Maritieme Madness
Maritieme Madness - The Brugwachterhuisje at the Rotterdam Parksluizen has become a dysfunctional control room for a bunch of quirky sea creatures who’ve decided that the abandoned guard house is the perfect spot for their latest “project.” Forget any notions of efficiency—this isn’t about managing anything, unless you count managing to irritate the human world above the water. This band of mischievous sea creatures has waltzed in, taken over, and turned the space into their own personal playground. Rotterdam’s meticulously planned water management strategy doesn’t quite mesh with their aquatic antics, which include spontaneous tidal raves and merfolk-freindly water levels. For an entire month, visitors can witness the delightful chaos as these sea monsters take over the guard house.
A seemingly foldable chair for unfolding events
A seemingly foldable chair for unfolding events - "The Weasel Timeline" conspiracy theory asserts that Earth underwent a shift to an alternate universe following a weasel intrusion at the Geneva Hadron Collider in April 2016, causing a temporary shutdown. Advocates of this theory contend that it could provide a rationale for the apparent systematic chaos witnessed in recent years, resembling a modern-day "New Dark Age." Undoubtedly, compelling parallels exist between the present world and the Middle Ages. The increasingly personalized nature of democratic politics mirrors the era of dynasties and nobility. The supremacy of technological behemoths in the global economy reflects a feudal understanding of power dynamics. Supranational institutions share similarities with papal and imperial structures, while conspiracy theories embody a millenarianism reminiscent of the dark ages. Referencing to the medieval Glastonbury Chair, "A seemingly foldable chair for unfolding events" invites us to take a seat, take a deep breath, and contemplate the morbid phenomena occurring around us. Here, the map of the CERN accelerator complex transforms beyond its informative role, emerging as an ornamental embellishment intricately engraved onto the chair.
lagunare
lagunare - "lagunare" is a collaborative research project focusing on circular economies that extend to materials and narratives within the lagoons. "lagunare" is a verb: it implies movement. The research focuses on situated and tentacular knowledge while rehearsing other-than-human collaborations and regenerative craftmanship. Together with Giorgia Burzio, we developed a PHA-based filament for digital fabrications that includes a variable percentage of mussels shells collected from restaurants in Venice. PHAs are a class of natural materials that existed for over millions of years. These materials are both bio-based and biodegradable, similar to other natural materials such as cellulose, proteins and starch. PHAs are produced by an extensive variety of microorganisms through bacterial fermentation. During fermentation, bacteria convert different types of feedstock into a product. In this case, the microbes produce PHA, a natural polymer. PHA-based bioplastics exhibit biodegradable behavior in all anaerobic and aerobic environments and can be used to make fully compostable, soil- and marine-biodegradable goods. Rehearsing regeneative ways of production, we developed the lantern - an aquatic light for regenerative futures. A tentacular seaweed-based lace crafted by Alicia Valdés intertwines, binding two shells printed with our hybrid material, a blend of PHA and powdered mussels. Nestled within the lantern's handle, a touch-light bulb, akin to a luminous pearl, awaits the user's touch to ignite the aquatic glow. Born from the liquid depths, this lantern can return to the sea, completing its cycle in a marine environment, weaving a circular narrative of materials.
USB-Mussels Aquatic Muscles
USB-Mussels Aquatic Muscles - Inspired by Aram Bartholl’s “Dead Drops” and the ecological function of mussels as a catalyst for environmental regeneration, the “USB-Mussels Aquatic Muscles” rehearse ways of digital resistance. By anchoring, sedimenting, exchanging, and remixing information in offline environments, they function as an anonymous, opaque, peer to peer file-sharing network.
J'adore Venise—on disappearing bodies
J'adore Venise—on disappearing bodies - "J’adore Venise—on disappearing bodies" investigates the entanglement of hyper tourism, surveillance capitalism and productive refusals. The research delves into the complex relationship between Venice, conceived as an urban body, and its users, focusing on the phenomenon of "disappearing bodies" resulting from both anthropogenic environmental degradation and the pervasive influence of surveillance capitalism. The Italian pop song "J’adore Venise" punctuates this investigative research that encompasses both a profound affection for and a critical evaluation of Venice: A paradoxical declaration of love. Inaugurated in September 2020, the Smart Control Room is a project born from the strategic collaboration between the municipality of Venice, the local police, and Tim Telecom Italia. This control room collects real-time images from over 400 closed-circuit cameras installed throughout the city and its immediate surroundings. Additionally, using an advanced phone data tracking system, the Smart Control Room gathers and stores anonymous information about users’ country of origin, age, gender, speed, and route within its operational range. The goal of this monitoring is to produce a quantitative profile of users, thereby assisting authorities in developing a more sustainable tourism plan for the lagoon city, according to them. One of the most immediate results of this project has also been the recent introduction of the access fee to Venice, a metonymy for the transformation of the lagoon city into a museum, an amusement park, a simulation of a city that once was. What happens when tourism becomes the main narrator: When the tourist narrative infiltrates local economies and becomes the main place-making tool? By reshaping the perception and consumption of a specific place, the tourist experience introduces a simulated authenticity that obscures, if not nullifies, the dynamism and pluralism of local narratives. "J’adore Venise—on disappearing bodies" consists of a video essay, video game, and a web archive. The video game allows potential (city)users to get in "touch" with Venice’s surveillance by navigating a simulation of the city. Furthermore, a mousepad made of bioplastics & 3D printed biofabrications using mussels and seaweed from the lagoon recreates a simulated materiality of the venetian ecosystem allowing the (city)users to haptically get in touch with the city of Venice while visually navigating its virtual simulation. In the videogame (city)users wear a Bauta (from German "behüten" - to protect), a traditional Venetian mask worn both by women and men to mantain anonimity in public spaces. Every time that users enters a surveilled area, they loose part of their anonimity until they become fully visible and readable to the system. The game ends when users lose their anonimity. Furthermore, scuba divers wearing a wet suit with the logos of the sponsors of the Control Room are to be found where the actual CCTV cameras are installed in the city. Eventually, users inhabit a semi-transparent body made of seaweed - the same material of the mousepad simulating the materiality of the city. The web archive functions as a DIY research-storage where information, articles, books, visual associations and processes are stored. The website is an open source archive, where users can follow the whole research and developing process and potentially recreate the videogame and the bioplastics by themselves. An archive for regeneative futures and productive refusals.
Venezia Fabrica Futura
Venezia Fabrica Futura - "Venezia Fabrica Futura" explores alternative futures already present in the Venetian lagoon and proposes a reflection on local ecologies of co-existence in an era marked by political, economic, and environmental crises. A group of young international researchers previously in residence at Fabrica Research Centre proposes multimedia research projects, including interactive video games; bio-fabrications with mussels from the lagoon; experiential tastings; experimental herbariums dedicated to underwater flora and sound re-elaborations of wave motion and pollution data from Venetian canals. Open to the public during weekends, the laboratory functioned as a catalyst for the artists to engage in conversations with the visitors, experiment, collaborate, and further articulate and situate their research.
Intensivsimulation La Gomera + Capri
Intensivsimulation La Gomera + Capri - The cross-space installation "Intensivsimulation" is to be understood as a continuation of the since 2020 ongoing research "Deutscher Urlab 2.0" (German Holiday) around the latent exoticisation of the German artificial turf. Unlike in most European countries, artificial grass carpets are often sold in German DIY and hardware stores with the names of paradisiacal islands such as Antigua, Bahamas, Bali, Capri, Corfu, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, La Gomera, Mallorca, Malta, Santorini and Sumatra. These nomenclatural retouchings of the goods are aimed at marketing the longing for dreamy holiday destinations and represent a surrogate for heavenly places. Yet what happens when a square meter of "Mallorca" artificial grass is more expensive than a direct flight from Hamburg to Mallorca itself? Based on the marketing strategies of artificial turf in German-speaking countries, the project "Deutscher Urlaub 2.0" raises questions about mass tourism, (simulated) ownership and ecology. In the process, a speculative space is created in which artificial grass carpets are observed and examined like green screens - green projection surfaces of postcolonial thinking. The installation "Intensivsimulation" consists of a physical and digital counterpart. PHYSICAL: Visitors are invited to enter the intensive-care-simulations "La Gomera" and "Capri" as inpatient-tourists. By means of visual as well as auditory elements, a temporally as well as spatially condensed vacation is created in the form of an immersive, artificial space, which references characteristic design components of a beach holiday, an airplane and an emergency room and combines them in a semiotic interplay. Hospital stretchers and sun loungers are surprisingly similar in their fundamental design. IV poles resemble parasols with the top part being removed. The aircraft belt in this specific ensemble is also reminiscent of fastening straps for operating tables. Illegally downloaded audio tracks and 360-degree photos from Google Maps function here as a counterpart to the holiday locations embodied by the respective artificial turf carpets. Together, they form a verbal and spatial glitch installation. DIGITAL: Thanks to an online memory game, inpatient-tourists can distract themselves during the treatment. Here, however, there are no pairs of identical cards. Instead, the pairs are each made up of two different representations of the same holiday destinations. Based on the erroneous naming process of the goods promoted by German DIY stores, the flat artificial grass carpet is to be matched here to unwrapped 360-degree Google photos of the respective tropical island.
Deutscher Urlaub
Deutscher Urlaub - "Deutscher Urlaub" is a research based project dealing with the latent exoticisation of German synthetic grass. Unlike in the most European countries, turf carpets are often sold in German DIY and wholesalers stores with the name of paradisiacal islands such as Antigua, Bahamas, Bali, Capri, Corfù, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, La Gomera, Mallorca, Malta, Mallorca, Santorini and Sumatra. These nomenclatural retouches of the goods are aimed at marketing the Sehnsucht for dreamy holiday destinations and represent a surrogate for heavenly places. What happens when a square meter of Mallorca artificial grass is more expensive than a flight to Mallorca itself?

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Amphibious Netherlands: A Suspicious Plot Twist

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Locatie: House of Commons
In samenwerking met: Environmental Humanities Network / University of Groningen

Talk

https://www.rug.nl/rudolf-agricola-school/news-and-events/2025/ehn-talk-11-dec?lang=en

Venezia is a videogame

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In samenwerking met: NERO
https://not.neroeditions.com/venezia-e-un-videogame/

BACKROOM

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Locatie: Spazio In Situ

The group exhibition takes shape as an inaugural gesture reflecting on the very notion of space and its intended use. In keeping with the spirit of the In Situ project, this new beginning is built through a dialogue with the exhibition context, featuring works that respond to and reflect the spatial tensions of the new environment.

https://www.spazioinsitu.it/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAacS-iAYQhVG8hc2MTN5OIq6otwTaq05wXuCHaf63HZhdizMHb76xRIihrw5AA_aem_MvvcKolfX26FuHaJjBXceg

Joint Research Day 2025

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Locatie: Royal Conservatoire
In samenwerking met: KABK; KC

The Joint Research Day brings together artist-researchers, tutors, PhD candidates, students, and alums from these three institutions to inspire one another, spark mutual interest, and share knowledge and experiences.

https://researchplatform.art/events/jrd25/

STRPxBart Hess

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Locatie: STRP
In samenwerking met: STRP; Bart Hess

This project is about creating a place for connection, creativity, and experimentation, an in-between space that is part artwork, part living environment. A place you can touch, transform, and experience with all your senses. Once completed, the space will function as a meeting point for the creative community, a gallery for artist, and a venue for workshops, talks, and live events.

https://strp.nl/projects/strp-bart-hess-2025

Symposium Water Imaginaries

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Locatie: Stroom Den Haag

At Stroom Den Haag, Water Imaginaries is a one-day gathering of artists, researchers, and makers exploring our relationships with water, ecology, and the built environment. Through panels, performances, and screenings, the program invites audiences into a world of storytelling and speculation—where material and immaterial knowledge flows between urban and rural, past and future, science and sensibility.

https://www.stroom.nl/en/stroom/agenda-en/water-imaginaries

Vilnius Film Festival

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https://kinopavasaris.lt/en/about/

Grain Urban Film Festival

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Through the immensity of the networks it (de)constructs, urbanity has been part of the cinematographic landscape since the advent of the moving image. While some constantly attempt to capture its fiery breath, others invite it to slow down in a freeze-frame ecology. Both devouring and dreamlike, fantasized and alarming, urbanity is a place of new creative promises, which GRAIN URBAIN film festival offers to explore.

https://equipe-creative.com/grain-urbain-en/#manifeste

Design Biennale Rotterdam

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Locatie: W70

Building on Rotterdam’s legacy of reinvention, a city built on resilience, and a future-focused community, the Biennale rethinks design’s role in shaping the world. Through innovative exhibitions and immersive experiences, it challenges conventional ideas and explores unexpected contexts. As a platform envisioning new possibilities, the event highlights Rotterdam as a city where design shapes the future.

https://designbiennalerotterdam.com/about

Maritieme Madness

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Locatie: Galerie Lecq
In samenwerking met: Julia Loeffler

The Brugwachterhuisje at the Rotterdam Parksluizen has become a dysfunctional control room for a bunch of quirky sea creatures who’ve decided that the abandoned guard house is the perfect spot for their latest “project.”

https://www.dealessandri.xyz/#19popup-box

Archival F(r)ictions

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Locatie: Nationaal Archief
In samenwerking met: MA Non Linear Narrative

From March to November 2024 students of the Master Non Linear Narrative collaborated with the Dutch National Archives to explore the hidden stories behind twelve historical maps from their Navigation and Overseas Expansion collection. The outcomes of this research collaboration are on display from 9 to 14 November 2024 at the National Archives in The Hague, aiming to redefine the archive as a space of memory and shared stories.

https://www.kabk.nl/en/events/masterstudenten-non-linear-narrative-presenteren-archival-frictions

Verborgene Infrastrukturen - Künstlerische Auseinandersetzungen mit Datenzentren und urbaner Überwachung

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In samenwerking met: re:publica

How does the digital transformation affect people and their environment? Julia Koch and Stefano Dealessandri are both presenting works at re:publica Hamburg. In this artist talk, they offer insights into their creative process and artistic research.

https://re-publica.com/de/session/verborgene-infrastrukturen-kuenstlerische-auseinandersetzungen-mit-datenzentren-und-urbaner

Lago Film Fest

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https://www.lagofest.org

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival

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https://hotdocs.ca/whats-on/hot-docs-festival

The secret life of micro-algae

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Locatie: Centro di Cultura Contemporanea del Carme
In samenwerking met: Un Jardin Sur Les Toits

This exhibition highlights, as a didactic journey, the adaptation of these micro-organisms and their fundamental contribution to the creation of the aerobic life on earth as we know it today.

https://www.consorcimuseus.gva.es/centro-del-carmen/exposicion/inauguracio-la-vida-secreta-de-les-microalgues/

Bibliotheque_5252

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Locatie: Fondazione Querini Stampalia
In samenwerking met: Fabrica
https://www.querinistampalia.org/en/bibliotheque/

Iterior Ecologies

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Locatie: Online
In samenwerking met: MAIA, Master of Arts in Interior Architecture at HEAD – Geneva, and the Institute for Postnatural Studies
https://www.interiorecologies.com

Opyum ART FESTIVAL

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Opyum is the first international art festival dedicated to contemporary creation on video performance taking place each year in Paris. An alternative medium that remained confined to a few rare galleries and museums around the world is taking on a new dimension by reinventing its mode of distribution through video.

Venezia Fabrica Futura

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Locatie: Complesso dell'Ospedaletto
In samenwerking met: Fabrica

Fabrica Research Centre arrives at Complesso dell’Ospedaletto in Venice with the intention of creating an eco-critical research laboratory concerning the lagoon city and its complex ecosystem. This laboratory »Venezia Fabrica Futura« explores alternative futures already present in the lagoon and proposes a reflection on local ecologies of co-existence in an era marked by global political, economic and environmental crises.

https://www.fabrica.it/veneziafabricafutura/

Nouvelle Bug

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In today’s cinematic landscape, which is increasingly suffocating and competitive, it is necessary to develop all the tools necessary to become completely independent. Through ten days of workshops, 40 directors from all over the world will participate in seminars, theoretical and practical lessons held by Andrea Gatopoulos, Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis, Total Refusal Crew and Gala Hernández López, delving into cutting-edge digital cinema techniques.

https://www.nouvellebug.com

FABRICA Research Centre

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https://www.fabrica.it
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