Ilê Sartuzi (1995) lives and works in London. He is an artist who graduated from the University of São Paulo and holds a master’s degree from Goldsmiths, University of London. He received the Prêmio PIPA (2021), the Bienal de Artes Mediales award (Chile, 2022), and was twice nominated for the CIFO-Ars Electronica award (USA-Austria, 2022–2023). Sartuzi also co-created and directed the independent space arte_passagem.

With a conceptual, research-based approach, his practice involves sculptural objects, mapped video projections, mechatronic installations, tricks, theatrical pieces (and more), playing with the idea of animating objects and infrastructural elements. His interest in the dramatic arts lends a theatricality to these objects and installations, which are animated by mechanical movements and perform dramaturgies and choreographies; often in a repetitive exercise that leads not to catharsis but instead reveals the workings of the machines themselves.

His recent solo exhibitions include Vaudeville, Pedro Cera, Lisbon (2023); cabeça oca espuma de boneca, SESC Pompéia, São Paulo (2022); and A. E A de novo., auroras, São Paulo (2021). He has exhibited at institutions such as Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2021), Instituto Moreira Salles (2020), and MAC-USP Museu de Arte Contemporânea (2017). His work is in public and private collections including Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, coleção moraes-barbosa, Instituto PIPA, Videobrasil, and the British Museum.

In disasters (2022), dollhouses—recurring elements in Ilê Sartuzi’s work—can be observed. They evoke exercises of childhood imagination and representational elaboration. In stories laden with morality, the presentation of fears and prohibitions begins to shape subjectivities. Using a dollhouse mold, the pieces are reproduced in paraffin tinted with oil paint, and the processual deformations point to the passage of time and allude to death. As the house is a privileged space for thinking about contradictions and intimate horrors, the dollhouse becomes a place to play with these things—to re-present certain events and make sense of strange experiences.