Eight questions for Bianca Censori, as she unveils her debut performance

Bianca Censori has presented her first exhibition and performance, BIO POP, in Seoul, South Korea

woman in the kitchen
(Image credit: Creative direction, set and furniture deisgn: Bianca Censori. Lookbook images courtesy of Noah Dillon)
By
published
in Features

Australian-born Italian artist and trained architect Bianca Censori has entered the art world in controversial style, unveiling the first part of a seven chapter series, set to conclude over the next seven years.

BIO POP, performed in Seoul, South Korea, over two days on December 11th and 12th, considers themes of domesticity, intimacy and identity. Slowly, carefully, and clad in latex, Censori bakes a cake, before serving it to sculpted clones draped over furniture, so tightly contorted as to become the objects themselves. In her pin-point heels and glistening second skin, Censori serves her cake and perches on one. A musing on ritual, a woman's place or the juxtaposition of the intimate and the public?

What does it mean? Censori tells us here.

Bianca Censori on her debut exhibition and performance

Wallpaper*: What does revolution mean to you, in the context of the home?

Bianca Censori: Revolution starts where behaviour is first learned. The home is where power is normalised.

Why did you want to express this through this medium?
Because domestic power operates through objects, rituals, and bodies. This medium makes that visible.

In what ways do you see domestic rituals shaping public identity?
Domestic rituals train the body. Public identity is just that training carried outward.

woman in the kitchen

(Image credit: Creative direction, set and furniture deisgn: Bianca Censori. Lookbook images courtesy of Noah Dillon)

woman in the kitchen

(Image credit: Creative direction, set and furniture deisgn: Bianca Censori. Lookbook images courtesy of Noah Dillon)

Why begin BIO POP in the kitchen? What does the act of baking symbolise for you?
The kitchen is where care, labour, and expectation intersect. Baking is repetitive, ritualised work that looks benign but carries structure.

The cake is rich in familial connotations but here it is an offering, not a nourishment. What are you offering, and to whom?
Time. Labor. Compliance. The offering is made to the system that expects it.

woman in the kitchen

(Image credit: Creative direction, set and furniture deisgn: Bianca Censori. Lookbook images courtesy of Noah Dillon)

woman in the kitchen

(Image credit: Creative direction, set and furniture deisgn: Bianca Censori. Lookbook images courtesy of Noah Dillon)

The dark haired doubles are physically contorting themselves to fit here. How does this resonate with you? What do they represent for you?
Adaptation. Endurance. The body adjusting itself to structures that weren’t built for it.

What aspects of your own experience, if any, informed the idea of domesticity as architecture of the self?
The work isn’t autobiographical. It’s observational.

This is described as the origin point of a seven-part cycle. What made domesticity the necessary starting place? Can you tell us how it will evolve?
Domesticity is the first system we enter. The cycle moves outward — from home to culture to collective life.

youtube.com

woman in the kitchen

(Image credit: Creative direction, set and furniture deisgn: Bianca Censori. Lookbook images courtesy of Noah Dillon)

woman in the kitchen

(Image credit: Creative direction, set and furniture deisgn: Bianca Censori. Lookbook images courtesy of Noah Dillon)
Hannah Silver

Hannah Silver is the Art, Culture, Watches & Jewellery Editor of Wallpaper*. Since joining in 2019, she has overseen offbeat art trends and conducted in-depth profiles, as well as writing and commissioning extensively across the worlds of culture and luxury. She enjoys travelling, visiting artists' studios and viewing exhibitions around the world, and has interviewed artists and designers including Maggi Hambling, William Kentridge, Jonathan Anderson, Chantal Joffe, Lubaina Himid, Tilda Swinton and Mickalene Thomas.

Latest