Giovanni Coda, an internationally award-winning director, photographer, and gallerist from Cagliari (born 1964), reflects on 35 years of his career in an interview coinciding with the first part of his retrospective exhibition. The article traces his evolution from a 1990 VHS-C video installation at Teatro dell'Arco through his acclaimed gender-violence trilogy ("Il Rosa Nudo", "Bullied to Death", "La Sposa nel Vento") to his experimental work during lockdown with the collective NostraSanctissima. Coda discusses his choice of expressive freedom over mainstream cinema, his 31-year direction of the V-Art film festival, and his upcoming project dedicated to the transformist performer Gianni Dettori.
This interview matters because it profiles a multidisciplinary Italian artist whose work consistently centers on human rights, memory, and the dignity of marginalized people. Coda's career demonstrates how independent visual artists can sustain a practice across film, photography, video art, and installation while maintaining a critical social conscience. His reflections on art's role in addressing crimes that the law struggles to frame highlight the continued relevance of politically engaged visual art in contemporary Italy.