The Power Plant

Amalia Pica is a London-based Argentinian artist born in 1978. Encompassing sculpture, performance, installation, video, and drawing, Amalia Pica’s work examines systems of communication and what brings people together. Using seemingly simple materials and found objects, she investigates human modes of interaction, especially our desire to be understood and the accompanying pleasures and failures. Pica considers shared visual codes associated with verbal and nonverbal language systems – often incorporating playful signifiers of collective expression and cultural celebration such as bunting and confetti – ultimately exploring cultural intimacy and the political potential of joy. As a result, her work has a lightness of touch and a feel-good quality, which Pica prioritizes for its power to draw viewers into a conversation.

Born during Argentina’s “Dirty War” in which the dictatorship persecuted suspected political dissidents, Pica’s work also addresses techniques of state control and explores the relationship between form and politics, as well as history and representation. Her performances and viewer-activated works examine how civic participation and social forms can provide opportunity for creative expression and can even act as a form of resistance within oppressive social systems. More recently, she has turned her attention to investigating the systems that are ever-present and ingrained in contemporary society, especially bureaucracy and modes of assembly.