LOVELY-RATZ

Bio
Linda Pietrobelli (2001) and Ambra Zamengo (2002) are currently pursuing their Bachelor's degree in Multimedia Arts at IUAV University of Venice. In 2023, they formed the collective “LOVELY-RATZ”, born from the desire to work together, engaging with the dimension of “the other” and considering it as necessary for the development of thought.

Statement
By combining performance and photography in the analysis of human dynamics—with a particular focus on interpersonal relationships and social roles—their artistic research seeks to privilege queer and transfeminist perspectives, placing people at the center of both the artistic project and the work itself. They intertwine aesthetics and conceptual inquiry to create spaces for dialogue and reflection, fostering empathetic connections.
Their artistic practice builds visual and theoretical connections through performative practices and bodily gestures: through these, they explore how the body interacts with its surrounding space, reinterpreting and shaping the environment through itself and its own perception.
In the pursuit of a pre-practical emotional dialogue, their interest lies in understanding relational dynamics through a psychological and anthropological approach, which allows them to explore and communicate the complexities of places, individuals, and communities. From this arises their interest in connecting territory, nature, and people through expressive means such as photography, performance, and other artistic media.

Lozio Settembre 2024

book
127 pages, 15,5x21,5 cm

2024 - 2025

Project supported by “Falìa* AIR 2024”, curated by Alice Vangelisti
Design by Michele Bellinaso

This publication emerges as a testament to a participatory practice aimed at exploring the relational fabric of a small community through shared memory and storytelling. In the dispersed municipality of Lozio, where around 350 people live divided among four hamlets, we propose a project that values the personal stories of local women, weaving their narratives into a network that reveals the invisible social fabric of this community.
The work consists of a book and a collection of “fairy tales” born from a participatory process: each woman tells an anecdote about another one she has chosen, takes a photograph of her in her home, fills out a form with biographical data, and donates a piece of fabric. The storyteller decides how to portray the person she has chosen, selecting the pose and the setting—a gesture that reveals her way of seeing her. This becomes a symbolic act of identity transfer, in which the signature and photograph represent the image of a woman seen through the eyes of another. Each signature, each name, is a gesture of identification that transcends the mere bureaucratic act, transforming the objective description into an experience of empathetic immersion.
The work thus becomes a living archive, a collective narrative that not only documents but transforms and renews the perception of self and of the other. The act of telling and portraying becomes an experience of exchange: the observer is in turn observed, the storyteller is in turn told. The material element plays a fundamental role in this research: fabric, writing, and signature become instruments of identity transfer— tangible signs of a relationship that unfolds in space and time. Each gesture, each trace left by the participants becomes a fragment of collective history, revealing how identity is a process in constant transformation.

Included in the group exhibition Falìa* AIR 2024 — Lozio, 2025
Featured in the official residency catalogue
Selected for the second edition of NUSCA (Nothing Until Something Comes Along), Independent Festival dedicated to Cinema and Publishing — Venice, 2025