Elisa Cazzato PhD
I am committed to excellence in research through interdisciplinary exchanges, international experience, and well-informed translation of scientific knowledge
About me
My research interests range from stage design to histories of arts, theatre, and artistic networks. I am currently a Marie Skłodowska Curie Global Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, with a project titled SPECTACLE – The lure of the foreign stage: Italian art and artistry serving the French and European spectacle.
My project has involved a period of research at the CELLF (Centre d’étude de la langue et des littératures françaises) of the Sorbonne Université in Paris and in the Department of Art History at the New York University.
SPECTACLE is a multidisciplinary investigation intersecting histories of culture, art, stage design, and theatre. It aims to define the cultural meaning of ‘spectacle’ and ‘spectacularity’ in France and in a selection of European capitals in the long 18th century. This is being established through research on the ephemeral constructions standing behind the process of spectacle-making (e.g. stage design, firework technology, circus performance). Specifically, this project investigates how Italian artists from different backgrounds provided key contributions to French and European spectacle broadly conceived (e.g. public and private performances, propaganda events). My research is also addressing questions on when and how genders, races, and forms of disabilities were used as forms of ‘ephemeral entertainment’, and how much these forms of spectacle created stereotypes that are still present in current times and society.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement no 893106.
My background
In 2018, I completed my PhD at The University of Sydney with a thesis titled An Italian Artist in Paris: the career and designs of Ignazio Degotti (1758-1824). This project was supervised by Professor Mark Ledbury and funded by The University of Sydney International Scholarship. In 2014, the Cité Internationale des Arts scholarship allowed me to undertake four months of archival research in Paris, hosted by the Power Institute of Sydney.
In 2018, I was also awarded a three-month scholarship by the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice to complete a research project entitled Giambattista Piranesi, Ignazio Degotti, and the succeeding archaeological paradigms (1740-1830). Before my Ph.D. I had written a Master thesis titled Alessandro Sanquirico e la Scenografia a Milano tra età Napoleonica e Restaurazione under the supervision of Professor Fernando Mazzocca.