WISSAL HOUBABI – IMPERCEPTIBLE
IUNO is pleased to announce the residency of Wissal Houbabi, poet, performer, and writer, and to host IMPERCETTIBILE, a project unfolding along two parallel paths, each comprising seven sessions, to be held in the cities of Padua and Rome. The initiative is realized in collaboration with MUCIV-Museo delle Civiltà di Roma, the Department of Political, Legal, and International Studies at the University of Padua, Radio Sherwood and IUNO.
IMPERCETTIBILE is an experimental exploration of poetic practice, conceived to illuminate the relationship between voice and memory. Through a series of workshops held at IUNO during October and November, participants will engage in collective exercises culminating in a public performance at the Museo delle Civiltà in April.
Guided by Wissal Houbabi and theatre director Marco Corsucci, participants will be invited to explore the deeper meaning of words and to reactivate the sonic memories preserved within them. These sounds—charged with both personal and political significance—will form the foundation for a collective performance. The workshops draw on artistic and political practices developed by Houbabi herself, whose diasporic experience places the relationship with one’s body at the core of her creative research, transcending place and time.
Performance Rome
MUCIV-Museo delle Civiltà di Roma, Piazza Guglielmo Marconi, 14
APRIL 2026
APRILE 2026
Wissal Houbabi is a performance poet, artist, writer, creator, and artistic director of Spore, as well as a hip-hop head.
Her work explores the relationship between languages and dialects, between sound, stigma, and meaning. Over time, she has distinguished herself for her creativity, vocal and political radicalism, and her ability to communicate with empathy and depth.
Her research carries a distinctly political perspective—combining the pursuit of beauty with dignity—and understands poetic practice as a radical search for the collective “we.” Her projects investigate the epistemology of diaspora, focusing on oral heritage in relation to colonial history, the voice of the body, muscle memory, dreams in diaspora, and the right to love and be loved.
She collaborates with cultural and artistic institutions, promoting practices that critically challenge structurally oppressive frameworks. Her collaborations include institutions such as the University of Bologna, Goethe-Institut, and the Museo delle Civiltà, as well as several European universities and organizations including the Ville de Besançon.
Among her recent works:
La Madelaine de Proust – La Vache qui Rit, pubblicato in Visible: Art as Policies for Care. Socially Engaged Art (2010–Ongoing); Una gran puzza di merda nell’aria (A Great Stench of Shit in the Air), a monologue presented at over forty events including Hangar Pirelli 2022;
phonomuseum_rome at the Museo delle Civiltà;
Offesissima at Ar/ge Kunst Bolzano — and much more.
www.wiho.it – wiho@wiho.it – @wiho_who