A new exhibition on Laura de Santillana in the Giudecca spaces that once served as her studio. The Archive Capsule: Bindu
Saturday, November 22, from 11 AM to 2 PM, the De Santillana Foundation inaugurates The Archive Capsule: Bindu, an exhibition dedicated to the artistic research of Laura de Santillana, in the spaces that were once her studio at Giudecca 800/Q.
Laura de Santillana (1955–2019) was a glass artist renowned for her iconic tablets series and her ability to create unique chromatic tones. Bindu is the second chapter of The Archive Capsule (TAC) project. The exhibition unfolds through display structures designed by the multidisciplinary studio ZAVEN, which offers a reinterpretation of the library of tablets conceived by the artist. The exhibition features works created between 2003 and 2012, a period in which certain formal explorations consolidated and anticipated experiments that the artist would later develop in the Czech Republic. While continuing the production of her famous tablets—including the Flags and Tokyo-Ga series—de Santillana oriented her practice toward primordial, full, rounded, and opaque forms, characterized by intense color fields. Her work draws on references observed during her travels in India, Sri Lanka, Japan, and Southeast Asia, where she deepened the relationship between form, matter, and energy.
The Foundation, established to preserve and promote her work, has opened the site of her former studio to the public, turning it into a venue for temporary exhibitions and an archive. The Archive Capsule: Bindu explores a significant phase of the artist’s work, highlighting the dialogue between an “inner geography” and a “concrete geography” defined by collaborations with international galleries and museum institutions in the United States.
At the center of the room are several sculptures from the Montagne (Mountains) series (2010), inspired by elements of Indian and Japanese cosmogony. In her notes, the word “Syumisen” appears several times—the Japanese form of Sumeru, the cosmic mountain at the center of the universe: an axis connecting the visible and invisible, a point of balance.
Among the works on display, Bodhi (2008) evokes a gathered and meditative body. The Sanskrit term means “awakening” and encapsulates the artist’s idea of an inner journey. The Bodhies are hermetic vessels that metaphorically contain a latent force; the silver beneath the satin glass reflects light as if it were emanating from within the work.
The Meteors series (2008–2009) investigates the relationship between form and movement, imagining glass as matter traversed by energy in transit. The Suns (2010), on the other hand, evoke the original shape of the egg: compact volumes that safeguard a vital principle in its potential state.
Bindu, in Indian metaphysics, is the point where the individual self meets universal consciousness. In the exhibition, it becomes an interpretative key: a threshold where the search for essentiality in the works opens up to a deeper, ancient, almost geological dimension.
Laura De Santillana
The Archive Capsule: Bindu
De Santillana Foundation
Giudecca 800/Q • 30123
Open to the public: from November 24, 2025, to July 18, 2026
Monday and Wednesday: 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM
Friday: 9:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Guided tours and special openings by appointment
Exhibition texts and iconographic materials are available upon request.
Lauradesantillana.com
Photo: Laura de Santillana, Bodhies (2006–2008), sculpture series, first presented at Galerie l’Arc en Seine, Paris (2007). Photo © Fabio Zonta. Laura de Santillana, Testa (2013), Hand-shaped solid glass, silver foil, powder, iridescence, 11.5 x 23 cm. Photo © Fabio Zonta, and from the Foundation’s Instagram page.
Article by Laura Scarpa
