Photo credits: Ana Lui for Eurowings
Caterina Roppo (born September 25, 1986)
is a visual artist of Apulian origin, trained in Florence. She lives and works between Palma de Mallorca and Milan.
With her experimental approach, Roppo blends ancestral techniques and material avant-garde to explore the connection between trauma, memory, and matter. Her seminal project Trayma, inspired by the Greek word for "wound" and “perforation,” investigates trauma as a fracture of existence, an opening to immaterial worlds where the Self can be explored.
The fabric, conceived as epidermis, becomes a means for aesthetic reconciliation, addressing three-dimensionality and balancing modernity with ancestral memory. Her practice merges ruins and abandoned places with natural and imperfect materials.
Using plant fibers such as viscose and rayon, through Jacquard weaving, Roppo creates fabrics that evoke organic surfaces, free filaments, and three-dimensional volumes, generating deep tensions between the points and using steam technology to mimic stone in her textile interpretations.
Roppo doesn’t limit herself to weaving: shemends, sculpts, paints her textiles, giving them a powerful sense of materiality and presence.
She is currently leading two wide-ranging cultural projects: Il Vuoto di Trayma, a traveling educational program aimed at violence prevention, and SEVA, a cultural diplomacy initiative supported by the European Union and the Cultural Relations Platform (in collaboration with the University of the Arts London, Goethe-Institut, British Council, and the Italian Embassy in Colombo). SEVA explores resilience within small artisan communities affected by conflict and natural disasters, weaving together art, listening, and regeneration.
Roppo rejects hierarchical structures, social, intellectual, or economic, and embraces an equal, non-paternalistic dialogue with others. Her work takes on symbolic and ritual forms, akin to secular prayers, inviting people to perceive pain as a transition and identity as an instrument. She envisions new forms of self-creation where vulnerability is not silenced but embraced as the foundation of possible transformation. Her research is designed to adapt to small communities and societies emerging from conflict, creating spaces of exchange where fragility becomes a generative force.
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UPCOMING
TRANSFORMATIONS, Museu de la Pell, Igualada (Barcelona, Spain)
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
SEVA (docufilm), Terrae International Film Festival, Patù (Italy)
FEEDback – It’s About Time!, With-Gallery, Perth (Australia)
Curator: Eric Goldemberg
Curator: Eric Goldemberg
Everybody has pain somewhere, Piazza del Carmine 9, Milan (Italy)
Testo Critico Domitilla Dardi – Mostra promossa da Fischbacher 1819 per ArtWeek e DesignWeek
Testo Critico Domitilla Dardi – Mostra promossa da Fischbacher 1819 per ArtWeek e DesignWeek
2024
Galateo Ancestrale, CULT EDIT, Complesso Museale Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco, Naples (Italy)
Curator: Domitilla Dardi
Curator: Domitilla Dardi
Being Worldless, Casino dell’Aurora Pallavicini, Rome (Italy)
Curator: Domenico de Chirico
Curator: Domenico de Chirico
Being Worldless, Palazzo Cagnola, Milan (Italy)
Curator: Domenico de Chirico
Curator: Domenico de Chirico
Shard of Stones, Martch Art Project, Istanbul (Turkey)
Curator: Michele Spinelli
Curator: Michele Spinelli
Vettor Art Project, (Bari, Italy) Curator:Michele Spinelli
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
Turkish Textile Biennial, Wave, Istanbul (Turkey)
Curator: Nihat Özdal
Curator: Nihat Özdal
2024
Arte Laguna Prize – Finalist Exhibition, Arsenale Nord, Venice (Italy)
Curators: Giulia Colletti, Chiara Canali
Curators: Giulia Colletti, Chiara Canali
Il Vuoto di Trayma, Arsenale Nord, Venice (Italy)
Curator:s: Giulia Colletti, Chiara Canali
Curator:s: Giulia Colletti, Chiara Canali
Xtant, (Mallorca, Spain), Curator: Kavita Parmar
Kaplan Project, (Mallorca, Spain)
Cramum, Group Show, Reti (Milan, Italy)
2023
Beautifool Minds: Group Show, Cavallerizza (Turin, Italy)
Contemporary Istanbul: Collectors Dinner, Mandarin Hotel (Istanbul, Turkey)
Baitball #03: Group Show, Fondazione Pino Pascali (Polignano, Italy)
2022-2020
Eidos: Ipercubo (Milan, Italy)
The Doors: Augmented Reality Solo Show, Piuarch Studio (Milan, Italy)
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AWARDS & RECOGNITION (2024)
Certificate of Artistic Merit Luxembourg Art Prize
Arte Laguna Prize: Finalist, Arsenale Nord, Venice
Business for Art: Incalmi, Bios Line
Sustainability: Special Mention by Contarina (Arsenale Nord, Venice)
CRAMUM Prize: Finalist (Milan)
FEEDback Prize: Finalist, Bienal International de Arquitectura de Buenos Aires (UIC Barcelona)
Prisma Art Prize: Finalist (Rome)
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CULTURAL DIPLOMACY PROJECTS
EU–Sri Lanka Match-Making 2025
TALK AND CONFERENCE
FEEDback - It’s About Time! UIC Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, (Barcelona, Spain)
FEEDback - It’s About Time! Curtin School of Design and the Built Environment ( (Perth, Australia)
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ILLUSTRATION PROJECTS
2024, 2021: Cover Illustrations for Panorama Collezione
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SPECIAL PROJECTS
Moooi Selected Project (Milan 2025)
Marcel Wanders & Caterina Roppo x Fischbacher 1819 (Milan,Paris 2025)
Community: Textile Exhibition, Spazio Calabiana (Milan, 2023)
Superpower: Textile Exhibition, Spazio Calabiana (Milan, 2022)
Magnifiche Passioni: Textile Exhibition, Spazio Krizia (Milan, 2021)
Various Textile Exhibitions in Milan, spanning from 2015-2020
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CRITICAL TEXTS
Everybody has pain somewhere by Domitilla Dardi (2025)
Being Worldless by Domenico de Chirico (2024)
Eidos, La forma del pensiero by Gabriela Galati (2023)
Trayma by Michele Spinelli (2022)
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CATALOGUES AND PUBBLICATIONS
Il Vuoto di Trayma 2024
Eroi & Sopravvissuti (CRAMUM) 2023
Nice & Fair (Paratissima) 2023
Video credits: Joy Wanders