Luca Gerry ConteArtist in Residence

We welcome performance artist Luca Gerry Conte as Waag's 2026 3Package Deal artist. Luca is a multidisciplinary artist who approaches art as a participant in spatial and social ecosystems.

He began his BA in Fine Arts (Painting) in Carrara in 2012, to conclude it at The Hague's Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KABK) in 2017. In these years he developed a practice questioning the ethical implications of art production, in light of the current ecological crisis.

Each element of his work, whether image, medium, or structure, started to belong to a broader ecology: a logos of nature embedded in space. His research aims at unfolding the work’s life in space and time, while channeling a multisensory experience that informs an ecological consciousness through narration and engagement in space.

In 2021, he studied at the University of Gastronomic Science, graduating in Ecology, Creativity and Education, after which edible matter and the surrounding context became a central catalyst naturally as a medium and a research subject.

In 2024, he started the research "How to Build Intertwing Food Narratives" with the support of the Italian Council – Edizione 13, research that he carried on during the residency at Jan Van Eyck Academie in 2025. Through gastronomy, he explored how everyday contexts invite subtle engagements that can draw attention to the ordinary as extraordinary. He consequently started creating encounters that require a small effort, a moment of friction that opens pathways for narrative and connection.

Underlying this is an alchemic process, a quiet, ongoing research into transformation: of matter, of meaning, of self. Luca is interested in the inner quality of materials, in their need for support, and in the moment when it reaches its peak within its environment. Through art, he aims to reach for gold, not as a product, but as insight into the processes of decay and rebirth that animate the world and ourselves.