FLAVIA BERTORELLO Argentinian-born-NYC-based artist, architect, and independent researcher exploring the body-environment relations through a practice that includes drawing, writing, and experimenting with materials in various formats, scales, and spatial contexts. Interested in site-responsive processes, Bertorello’s work exists at the intersection of drawing, sculpture, printed media, sound, installation and restoration.
CURRENT STATEMENT/ 2025
My practice navigates multiple scales—geographical, temporal, and conceptual. Using my body as an interface, I connect the physicality of place, soil, and land to lived experience. I draw parallels between geologic histories and human narratives, linking deep time with the present. Projects such as Body as Land explore how the body becomes a tool for mapping terrain, where textures and pressures trace sedimentary patterns, erosion, and other natural forms.
My recent study of soil microbiomes has deepened my fascination with the unseen life that shapes ecosystems. I am interested in how soil composition, bacterial communities, and human-made structures transform one another over time. Working across drawing, mapping, sculpture, and installation, I layer materials and data to construct environments that reveal cycles of transformation—where decay, growth, and mineralization are understood as continuous acts of making.
Currently, I am working with Sporosarcina pasteurii, experimenting with soil and eggshell matrices to test crystallization and explore new forms of making in collaboration with bacteria. These experiments bridge empirical observation and intuitive exploration, where microbial activity becomes both a sculptural process and a mode of inquiry. On a conceptual level, these transformations act as metaphors for adaptation and cohabitation—living architectures shaped by the interaction of human and nonhuman forces.
In parallel, I have been researching taxonomy and formation of NYC Urban Soils as a framework for studying the city’s diverse grounds—from glacial deposits and industrial sediments to anthropogenic fills and designed landscapes. By linking microbial experiments with site-specific soil samples collected across locations such as Governors Island, Ridgewood, and the Gowanus Canal, I aim to understand how different soil ecologies embody histories of transformation, manipulation, and renewal. I approach urban soil not as inert matter but as a living collaborator—a co-author in the making of form.
Education
2018-2019- Transart Institute for Creative Research, University of Plymouth, UK. MFA.
2014-2018- The Art Students League of New York. Sculpture & Painting.
1997-2006- National University of Cordoba, Argentina. M.Arch & Urban Design.
Publications
2025- Ooze- Made Land- Artist Book-Self published
2023- NYLAAT program overview, New York Latin American Triennale
2023- Body as Land- Artist Book-Self published
2022- Shape of Nature- Jewelry Book-China Humanities Publishing House
2020- Growth & Evolution-Jewelry Book- China Modern Publishing House
Art Residencies
2025- Genspace NYC. Brooklyn, New York.
2024- Swale House/ Urban Soil Institute. Governor’s Island, New York.
2023- New York Latin American Art Triennial. Governor’s Island, New York.
2021- Untethered Magic. Nairobi, Kenya.
2019- Field Kitchen Academy. Wüsten Buchholz, Germany.
2019- Transart, UferStudios. Berlin, Germany.
2019- Transart, Art in general. Brooklyn, New York.
2018- Transart, UferStudios. Berlin, Germany.
Group Exhibits
2025-2026- Bronx Art Space: “BEYOND THE ARTIFACT: Do we call it architecture or a system of contingencies?”/ group exhibit. New York Latin American Art Triennial. NYC
2024-“Ipaint flowers so they won’t die”/ wearable art/ group exhibit. Rome, Italy
2023-“Ooze”/ installation/ group exhibit. Governors Island, NYC
2023-“This jewelry is 100mrb”/wearable art/ group exhibit. Beijing, China.
2022- “I break”Venice experimental video and performing arts festival/Pallazo Bembo, Venice,Italy.
2021- “eternal flame” / video/ group exhibition / V Gallery, NYC
2020- “the heart cave” / sound piece/ online symposium/ transart reading room
2020- “Coil of life”/ wearable art/ group exhibit. Beijing design week. China.
2020- “This Happened”/ installation/ citadel + compagnie. Toronto, Canada.
2019- “Iron and Granite: IN Conversation”/ performance & installation/ Uferstudios, Berlin. Germany.
2019- “Particle lake”/ sculpture & sound installation- live stream/ New York-Cordoba, Argentina
2017- Elizabeth st. Garden Fundraising show/ poetry piece/ NY, NY
2017- “Red dot exhibition”- Sculpture- Phyllis Harriman Mason gallery, NY, NY
2016- “Red dot exhibition”- Sculpture- Phyllis Harriman Mason gallery, NY, NY
2015- “Red dot exhibition”- Sculpture- Phyllis Harriman Mason gallery, NY, NY
2010-“Nuage” - The Lab gallery/ installation / NY, NY
flabertorello@gmail.com
+1 646-852-7305