Sara Giannini is an independent researcher, curator, teacher and writer based in Amsterdam. Informed by her background in theatre studies and semiotics, she is drawn towards the interlinking of language and performativity across a variety of (artistic) practices, contexts and disciplines. Her engagement with the curatorial emerges from the desire to support and facilitate interstitial thinking, liminality and “transvestism” as a methodology.

After her MA in Semiotics from the University of Bologna (cum laude), she worked as curator, researcher and editor for the research programme Global Art and the Museum at the ZKM | Karlsruhe (2010-2014), while from 2012 till 2015 she held the position of artistic coordinator of the traveling research group OuUnPo | Ouvroir d’Univers Potentiels. As an independent curator she has initiated long-term projects in close dialogue with artists and practitioners in different fields, in and out of conventional art contexts. Long-term projects include the VOLUME project, a series of artistic interventions in Beirut public libraries curated in collaboration with 98weeks (2013-2014), the web-publishing and archiving platform Unfold (2015-ongoing), and Heterotropics.

In 2016/17 she was a fellow at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, researching aphasic language in relation to the archive of Dutch artist René Daniëls. The fellowship resulted in the exhibition and performance series OWNNOW: René Daniëls.

She has lectured internationally, as well as contributed to a variety of books and catalogues. Her projects have taken place in institutional settings, urban contexts, online platforms and independent project spaces, including Jumex Museum, Mexico City; documenta 14, Athens; the Museum of Modern Art, Kunsthalle São Paulo and Casa do Povo, São Paulo; de Appel, Stedelijk Museum, Rijksmuseum and Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam; 98weeks, Mansion, Assabil Public Libraries, Beirut.

Since 2017 she is part of the core tutor team of the course offered by the Amsterdam organization If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution at the Dutch Art Institute | Roaming Academy. In 2017 she was also a visiting tutor and curator at the MA Artistic Research at KABK, Den Haag, and an advisor at Das Theatre in Amsterdam.

Together with artist Jacopo Miliani, she is the co-author of the book Whispering Catastrophe. On the Language of Men Loving Men in Japan forthcoming for SelfPleasurePublishing. In the Fall semester 2018 Sara will join the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies as a visiting research fellow.