NATALINA BONAPARTE

video-art philosophy medieval concept art movie essays

Everything you see below is chatter masquerading as art—a delicate attempt to open your heart by slamming mine shut. At night, I write on papyrus, but by morning, my words vanish. I search for them, only to find life drowned in capitalism and every other "ism" that leaves a bitter taste.

Who am I? My name is Natalina Bonaparte. I am a creative director and video artist. I work with moving and still images, capturing fleeting moments with a small handheld camera. I create video art, write scripts, and design visual narratives.

Previously, I was a designer for a project crafting medieval accessories. For the past 10 years, I have managed a vintage archive store, curating historical garments under my full direction. My work explores the space between the living and the obsolete, the ephemeral and the timeless. I take risks, experiment, and embrace creative challenges, seeking to create something resonant and enduring.

Sincerely,
yours N B

My videoart projects:

My artistic practice is rooted in the exploration of memory, transformation, and the intersection of history with contemporary narratives. I work with both moving and still images, weaving together archival aesthetics, experimental storytelling, and material culture to create immersive visual experiences.

I am particularly drawn to liminal spaces—the fragile border between the living and the obsolete. Through my work, I investigate the passage of time, the transience of objects, and the emotional weight of material history. By combining elements of video, costume, and set design, I construct layered narratives that evoke a sense of nostalgia, yet challenge the traditional notions of past and present.

The tactile aspect of my practice is crucial. Textiles, historical garments, and handmade accessories often serve as central motifs, bridging the sensory world with the digital realm. My background in managing a vintage archive store for over a decade has deepened my understanding of how fabric, texture, and silhouette can tell stories beyond words.

I am continuously experimenting with form, movement, and visual rhythm to push the boundaries of storytelling. Whether through video art, installations, or scenography, I seek to create works that resonate emotionally, inviting viewers into a space where history and contemporary existence intertwine.

Below is a selection of my video works —
but let me start from the most recent.

The Third Eye (7 min) 2018–2019

Privately (2 min) 2020

Room 1752(7 min) 2021

I Want to Sleep, I’m Cold(40 min) 2022

Use My Eyes, Father? (4 min) 2023

Letter (2 min) 2023

Spinebianche Breakfast (3 min) 2024

"Spinebianche breakfast"

collaboration with Francesca Passacantando

videoart

2024, Rome

"Spinebianche breakfast"

2024, Rome

"SpineBianche" – a video art piece created as a promotional project for the eponymous brand.

Two semi-mythical beings are caught in the midst of a mysterious ritual. They feast on fish, yet within each lies something more—a treasure hidden within the dense flesh. From the depths of the dish emerge jewels resembling fish bones, like ancient artifacts extracted from the body of a myth.

This film seeks to capture the DNA of SpineBianche, to reflect the delicate balance between the real and the legendary, between what remains in the tangible world and what dissolves into the fluidity of time.

Here, jewelry is not merely an object of desire, but part of an ancient cycle—concealed, consumed, and rediscovered once again.

Specially for this project, we created art objects made of food, constructing an additional reality where the edible takes the shape of myth. Through this transformation, what is meant to be consumed turns into an artifact, an ephemeral substance that momentarily becomes sacred form—a bridge between the material and the imaginary.

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"Use my eyes, Father?"

2023, Angoulem

"Use my eyes, Father?"

2023, Angoulem

"Beyond the door of my cell, I can call upon You, my Beloved, my Beloved Ones—Father and Son.

Take my earthly eyes, place them in Your palm, press them to Your own. Here I am, Your Daughter—not as You are used to seeing me, but as I long to see myself.

Look at my sharp claws, at the long hair I cut off yesterday, forever. I wander this room, dancing for You—the dance of self-acceptance.

Does my gender still mean anything? Can we not, for a moment, pretend that my skin is of a different color?"

fragment from video "Use my eyes, Father?"

"Teta de monja"

Sicily, 2023

The monastery sleeps,embracing the hills.Below,in the town,the baker Lorenzo kneads dough—whether for himself or for history, it's unclear. Eternity demands form, even if it’s just for a pastry. A nun enters—white as morning bread.She asks for flour, a few eggs. She says the abbess has ordered something new to be baked. Lorenzo looks at her hands—delicate, tense,like the strings of a lute. ry it this way, sister, he says, and the flour settles between the lines of their conversation. That night,in the monastery kitchen,a dessert is born—light as prayer,soft as forgiveness.By morning,it’s tasted.Some smile,some blush."They look like..." But the word fades away like a candle in the draft.The name remains—Tette delle monache(Nun’s breast).Lorenzo doesn’t think of it again.In the morning,he kneads dough once more,and the town wakes up again.Only in the monastery do the lights linger longer than usual.

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"I want to sleep, I'm cold"

2022, Yerevan

fragment from work

"I want tp sleep. I'm cold"

2023

"I Want to Sleep, I Am Cold" is a 40-minute video art piece created by me as an anti-war statement.

After moving to a safe place, I began filming myself with a handheld camera. I knew I had to transform suffering into statements. Every day, I turned on the camera and existed in front of it. I filmed myself day after day, documenting my inner state and reflections. I then edited these video recordings together and added the sounds of war, which never stopped in my head.

This film is a personal experience of the Russia-Ukraine war. Being half Russian and half Ukrainian, I conveyed in it the inner rupture, mirroring the conflict unfolding in the real world.

I wrote a deeply reflective text and incorporated it into the film—through voice and subtitles. There is no traditional plot; the viewer can begin watching at any moment. It is a philosophical meditation conveyed through literary language, rich in metaphors and references.

In the film, I recalled the myth of the Tacit Muta Goddess (Lara), condemned by Jupiter to a life without a tongue in the underworld, so that she could never speak again. Silence as punishment, as forced existence, as an imposed loss of voice—this is one of the key motifs of the film.

The work was presented at my solo exhibitions in Italy (Florence, Naples).

publication "I want to sleep, I'm cold"

150 copies, 2023

Fleeing from the war, I moved to Yerevan, a city densely populated with refugees. Unable to find a home to live in, I discovered an empty office space in a private house, located in the commercial real estate sector. It was a vacant building with white walls.

I asked the owner of the house to bring me a bed. He found an old bed in the garage, and that became the place where I spent the first three months of my forced emigration.

Being on and within this bed, I filmed the project "I Want to Sleep, I Am Cold."

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"Letter"

cooperation with writer Shakri

2023, Cyrali, Turkey

After the exhibitions in Italy, I moved to the next place of my forced emigration while waiting for my visa. It was a small village in southern Turkey, where I met the Dagestani writer Shakhri Amirkhanova. We became close, and in this collaboration, we created a short film for the brand J.Kim, which we both love.

We filmed the project at an art residency hosted by the artist and composer Tanju. This film is a letter—to a familiar yet unknown friend—who might also feel cut off and abandoned, yet we are connected by a thread, like fabric and garments. We are all sisters, bound together, even at a distance.

The film was largely inspired by one of my favorite artists, Sergei Parajanov, who was also politically punished. The pomegranate shot is dedicated to him. The film is filled with anchors—visual and symbolic—that speak of ethnic identity and connection to one's roots.

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"Room 1752"

short-movie

2021, Moscow

"Room 1752" is a video art piece exploring the nature of solitude and the transformation of identity through isolation.

This project is entirely focused on reconciling with loneliness. Only when one is utterly alone can one rid themselves of their identity and take on another’s name. The melancholic atmosphere of the film immerses the viewer in a space where the only tangible reality is the sense of detachment from the world.

The hotel room in which the protagonist finds herself is not just a physical location but a realm of internal existence. The objects she has brought with her become tools of transformation, yet at the same time, they emphasize the separation between the cherished and the disposable, the necessary and the forgotten.

Visually, the film recreates the atmosphere of the 1980s, as depicted in the classic cinema of that era. This choice removes direct references to any specific time period, freeing loneliness from its temporal constraints. The feeling of detachment, of being suspended between the past and the future, becomes a central motif of the film.

However, within this space, symbols of the present emerge: face tapes, a massage gouache scraper, ChatRoulette. These elements create a bridge between the protagonist’s personal isolation and contemporary reality, forming a dialogue between loneliness of the past and the present.

"Room 1752" is a meditation on the impossibility of connection, a silent dialogue with oneself, and the world that remains beyond the confines of a closed space.

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"Privately"

collaboration with artist Alina Nasibullina

videoart

2020, Moscow

"Privately" (2020) is a video art piece about loneliness that ceases to be a trauma and becomes a statement.

A woman invites herself on a date. Valentine’s Day, a burger, prosecco—this ritual appears as an ordinary act of consumption, yet in reality, it is a conversation with emptiness. She is focused, tense, but unbroken. She speaks without words:

“I am here.”
“I am in the best company.”
“I am face to face with emptiness, and I am falling in love with it.”

Loneliness in this film is not a punishment but a form of existence. It is freed from pity, turned into a performance, an act of choice.

This film is about duality, about the attempt to find balance between acceptance and resistance. One part of me wants to get used to loneliness. The other keeps testing its limits over and over again.

This project was created in collaboration with artist Alina Nasibullina.

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"Third eye"

videoart

2018-2019

"The Third Eye" is a video art project that captured a silent shift in the perception of art before the world even realized its inevitability.

In 2018–2019, I filmed people in museums across the world—Paris, Florence, St. Petersburg, Helsinki. They entered the Louvre, Orsay, the Pinacoteca, but before looking at a painting or sometimes instead of it, they raised their phones. Their hands performed a mechanical gesture, an unconscious ritual in which the third eye, an eye endowed with technical memory, became more important than the two they were born with.

This eye did not see, did not remember, did not immerse itself—it recorded, indifferent to what it was capturing. People believed they were moving through museums, but in reality, it was their technical eye leading them through the halls. They were no longer looking at art, they were producing images, replacing direct experience with its digital shadow.

I presented this project in a gallery in Moscow, and soon after, the pandemic began. The world locked itself inside screens, and my work, conceived as a critique, became a prophecy. The very third eye that symbolized the loss of immediate perception became the only way to see.

It justified its existence, and in doing so, it nullified the project itself. What was meant as a diagnosis became the only reality left.

ego must die 2016-2018