In the 1633 play The Bird in A Cage, Eugenia is imprisoned in a tower by her father, The Duke, preventing her from marrying her beloved Philenzo. Challenged to find a way into the tower if he wishes to claim her hand, Philenzo conceals himself within an elaborate birdcage filled with exotic birds. His eventual reveal shatters the cage, liberating both himself and Eugenia from her gilded confinement In one of the rare direct quotations attributed to the Franco-American stigmatist and mystic Little Marie Rose Ferron, she likewise imagines herself as a caged bird. Confined to her room, she watched from the window as friends passed in their Sunday best on their way to church. "I wept bitterly. Oh, if you only knew how I felt!." In stories of her birth, her mother dedicated her tenth child to the mystery of the crucifixion, foreshadowing a life of sacrifice and pain. By 23, she lay in agony on a bed made of wooden planks, her body secured with strips of linen to prevent it from curling uncontrollably into itself. Yet her devotion to God knew no bounds. By 1925, Little Rose entered periods of ecstasy during which she was said to converse with Christ, sing, and speak in other languages. As her body closed in on itself, she grew closer and closer to Jesus. Entirely relinquishing her own will. Marie Rose never escaped her confinement. Through redemptive suffering, the cage itself became the site of spiritual expansion. Her bodily pain acquired symbolic and theological value as she took on the pains and illness of others, submissive to her suffering. Her pain was never entirely her own, but became the place in which she believed union with her beloved could be found.

Christopher Gambino (b. 1996, New York NY) is an artist in New York. Christopher received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018, and will be completing an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2028. Recent solo and two-person presentations include The Christmas Show at Below Grand (New York, NY 2025,) Puqpa at Weatherproof (Chicago, IL 2025,) and Who Shot Candy Warhol? at Horse Room (Worcester, MA 2024.) Christopher’s work has also been exhibited at Amity (Los Angeles, CA 2026,) Blue Velvet (Zurich, Switzerland 2026,) KMS Enterprises (New York, NY 2025,) Espace Maurice (Montréal, Canada 2025,) and Pop Gun (New York, NY 2025,) among others.

Marie Ségolène-Christiane Brault (b.1988) is a Montreal-based artist, writer, and curator. She holds an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and bachelor's degrees in Creative Writing and Intermedia Cyber Arts from Concordia University. Working across performance, installation, and text, Brault's practice draws from archival research, religious history, and personal narrative. Her work has been presented in Canada, Europe, and the United States at venues including Western Front (Vancouver), Fonderie Darling (Montreal), M. LeBlanc (Chicago), No Gallery (New York), Hauser & Wirth Bookstore (New York), and Pangée (Montreal), among others. In 2021, she founded Espace Maurice, an apartment-gallery that has since evolved into a nomadic program of exhibitions, performances, publications, and collaborative projects. Since its inception, she has curated over thirty exhibitions and offsite events featuring local and international artists. The project has participated in PLURAL Contemporary Art Fair and has been featured in publications including Le Devoir, CBC Arts, Pin-Up Magazine, and Elephant. In 2024, Brault was selected for the Acadie–Québec residency, a partnership between Galerie Sans Nom, Projet Borgitte, Quartier Éphémère, and Fonderie Darling where she developed the touring performance work Queue de Poisson (Fish Tail).

Aneta Stojnić Ph.D, FIPA is a member of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, IPTAR, New York, a licensed psychoanalyst in private practice in Manhattan and a director of IPTAR’s Child and Adolescent Program. Alongside psychoanalysis, Aneta’s areas of research include artistic and theoretical practices at the intersections of art, culture and politics. She has published three books and three co-edited volumes, as well as dozens of peer-reviewed articles. She is a senior editor at the magazine “ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action” and co-host of the “Voices from Room” podcast. Aneta has authored numerous artistic and curatorial projects in collaboration with renowned institutions and organisations all over Europe. She has taught performance, art and media theory at universities and art academies in Vienna, Belgrade, and Ghent. She regularly presents her work and research at conferences and festivals worldwide.