I Contain Multitudes

2026Steel structure with LED lights9 × 3 × 11.4 metres

Marinella Senatore’s practice explores participation as an artistic, social, and political process through works that transform public space into sites of encounter and exchange. I Contain Multitudes (2026) reimagines the traditional Italian luminaria—monumental light structures historically built for civic and religious celebrations—as a contemporary architecture of gathering. Installed in Souq Al Mina, a historic marketplace where diverse communities have long met through trade and everyday exchange, the work transforms light into a medium for dialogue and belonging. Borrowing its title from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, the installation embraces identity as plural and continually evolving, proposing public space as a place where multiple voices, histories, and experiences coexist through shared presence and collective imagination.

Artist's Biography

Marinella Senatore

Rome, Italy

Working across light sculpture, installation, performance, tapestry, collage, and drawing, Marinella Senatore explores collective rituals, cultural memory, and vernacular traditions through participatory forms of art-making. For more than two decades, she has developed collaborative projects involving millions of participants across twenty-four countries, transforming shared experiences into immersive installations, public artworks, and civic spaces that foster dialogue, collective imagination, and social exchange. Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; MAXXI – National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome; Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and BOZAR, Brussels. She has participated in the Venice Biennale, São Paulo Biennial, Liverpool Biennial, and Manifesta, and her work is held in the collections of MAXXI, Castello di Rivoli, Museo Madre, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, and MART.

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