Pauline Massimo
Brazilian interdisciplinary artist and rope educator based between Spain and Brazil, founder and director of Espacio Nos in Barcelona, with a performance record since 2015 across Europe and the Americas and a gender-neutral approach to who ties whom.
Pauline Massimo is a Brazilian interdisciplinary artist and educator who works between Spain and Brazil. Their website, which uses they/them, describes them as the founder and director of Espacio Nos, an art studio in Barcelona that combines artistic research with the curation of events, and counts more than twelve years of professional work in the arts, with shibari as one of several disciplines.
Approach
An ArtsHelp profile by Pia Diamandis presents Massimo’s practice as gender-neutral: anyone, of any gender, may take the rigger’s or the model’s role in their work, which the article frames as a deliberate response to a scene long dominated by male riggers tying female models. Massimo told the magazine they do not feel a need to define a gender or pronouns but are comfortable with gender-neutral ones. The profile also notes that they teach self-tying, in which the person tying and the person tied are the same, and that their classes cover the anatomical risks of being tied so that participants can prevent injuries together. Their own site describes their teaching as non-dogmatic and centered on each person’s individual process, offered as workshops, group and private classes, mentoring, consulting and talks.
Performance
The performance list on their site begins in 2015 with a piece at Hans & Fritz Contemporary in Barcelona. In 2017 it records appearances at Torture Garden in London, at E.U.R.I.X. in Berlin, at Place des Cordes in Paris and at the Prague Shibari Festival, along with a duet series with Marika Leila Roux shown in Lyon and Paris. Later entries include Rope Space in São Paulo and venues in Athens and Umeå in 2018, Knotlounge in Lisbon in 2019, an online butoh and shibari piece for Karada House in 2020, and from 2021 a run of works staged at Espacio Nos, among them LIBRE, made with several partners including Ru Sagaris. In 2024 the list extends to Karada House in Berlin, Love Cabaret in São Paulo, Martinique, Costa Rica and Mexico, including a performance with Camila Dosamantes at Studio Jorogumo in Mexico City. Under video clips and films the bio lists the 2023 music video for “Copa Vacía” by Shakira and Manuel Turizo, and the homepage says Massimo’s shibari work appears in it, with Shakira tied as a mermaid.
Online teaching
For Learn Shibari they taught Elements, an intermediate class series on Zoom in December 2022. It ran in four blocks, each split over two evenings a week: aligning participants’ existing knowledge, the building blocks of harnesses and structures, restriction and movement as a way to convey emotion and read body language, and a closing block on connection. The listing presents the series as a guided, progressive and personalized program rather than tutorial-style teaching.