Throughout her childhood in Stuttgart, Germany, Barba engaged in various artistic endeavors, including dance, flute, and guitar lessons, before choosing to focus on the cello. At the age of 14, she developed a passion for photography, capturing portraits and landscapes that she processed in her school’s darkroom or in her bathroom at home.
“I was fascinated by the magic of it,” she reminisced, “seeing the image appear, and also being able to alter it.”
During this time, she also watched numerous films, finding inspiration in the works of Italian directors like Pier Paolo Pasolini and Federico Fellini, who viewed their films as artistic paintings. Upon receiving a Super 8 camera as a gift, she began exploring the creation of her own films.
She attended the innovative Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany—“one of the first institutions where film and art could be studied together,” Barba noted—where she learned from experimental filmmaker Harun Farocki and Austrian performance artist Valie Export.
Later, she pursued postgraduate studies at the renowned Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and the Malmö Art Academy in Sweden, which awarded her a Ph.D. for her dissertation titled “On the Anarchic Organization of Cinematic Spaces,” covering topics such as astronomy, art history, color theory, and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze.
Currently, she is often on the go. Although she has resided in Berlin since 2009, Barba estimates she spends about six months each year traveling for project research, filming, or setting up exhibitions. While she appreciates Berlin as a fruitful environment for thought and work, she feels that much of her creative thinking happens while she is traveling.
