Artemisia Gentileschi (b. 1593) was one of the most accomplished painters of the Italian Baroque, renowned for the psychological intensity, compositional strength, and technical mastery of her work. Trained in her father Orazio Gentileschi’s workshop, she achieved rare professional recognition during her lifetime, securing prestigious patrons and commissions across Europe. At seventeen, she was raped by Agostino Tassi, a collaborator of her father who had been assigned to instruct her in perspective. The public trial that followed subjected her testimony to judicial torture, an episode that would come to overshadow her legacy, as her work was later diminished, misattributed, or read through trauma rather than artistic authority.

372 years after her death, our installation Artemisia falls reflects on what she would encounter if she were to resurrect in 2026.

She would likely feel disillusionment. Rather than recognition, she would encounter repetition: the persistence of structural imbalance across centuries and geographies. In this imagined return, Artemisia does not appear triumphant. She appears displaced, overwhelmed by archives, footnotes, rediscoveries and posthumous corrections. Lost within the very research meant to restore her.