Something got broken like stolen

My research project focuses on the chronic illness Endometriosis and the consequences to the people affected by it. Endometriosis is a common condition where cells similar to the lining of the uterus are found in other parts of the body outside of the uterus. It causes life-changing symptoms including chronic pain and fertility difficulties. Awareness of endometriosis is low, even among healthcare providers.This condition affects 1 in 10 women, so why do we know so little about it? Prof. Pietro Giulio Signorile, President of Italian Endometriosis Association, calls it a “social condition,” but despite how widespread the condition is, many people find themselves waiting years for a diagnosis and struggling to find support, often being told that their severe period pain is normal. Drawing from my personal journey, Endometriosis can leave individuals feeling "in pieces” due to numerous surgeries, emotional struggles, losses, gaslighting, dealing with gender gap. Through art, I want to share a story that promotes strength, resilience and a sense of community. This creative journey begins with portraits I took of women, gradually moving to abstract forms representing their inner world. The creative research features photographs and mixed media collages based on photos, creating a reflective path that explores chronic pain, isolation, and resilience: making the invisible, visible.

Diptychs: photo and mixed media collages based on photographs

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Who will I be tomorrow?

Digital photo portrait with vintage paper masks

The mask is a powerful tool that allows us to enter a dimension that 'awake' we dare not visit. The mask possesses us, it drags us down deep into our selves, bringing out those hidden parts that we dare not let out. It makes us brave, magical, it opens the door to ancestral powers. It gives us the possibility to be what we desire, to move and pose as we otherwise would not. Who will I be tomorrow? In what new powers will I sail?

Attraverso lo specchio e quel che Alice vi trovò II

Attraverso lo specchio e quel che Alice vi trovó

Premio ARTE 2006, Milano (ITA) In collaboration with Accademia di Belle Arti, Venezia and ARTE Mondadori Cross Over Diapo film to Negative film

The dimension hidden behind the surface of a mirror is as real as the dimension in which we live. Through the lens, the same rules of the dimension we know exist, space is expanded in the same way we know in this dimention. In this research I wanted to investigate the possibility of putting into practice a game I used to play as a child, imagining that I also possessed the space beyond the mirror, by staging the first part of Lewis Carrol's famous book. For this work I experimented with the Cross Over technique, i.e. shooting with a DIAPO film but requesting development as if it were a negative. After trying a few, I found the most functional solution that allowed me to translate the colours of that dimention.

Body Modification I

Mutazioni Contemporanee Progetto ACCADE Galleria A+A, Venezia and Galleria Lucchetta Venezia Digital Photo

The research addresses skin and body. Body Modification, as an art that resorts to the body in situations of suffering, has an extreme means of fighting against the difficulties of living. The skin is attacked in an attempt to reach the most inaccessible depths of the self. Today, it is important to acquire the ability to continuously redefine ourself. The goal becomes one of self-representation in society, where the depiction of one's own image tends to prevail over everything. Visually, through the medium of photography, the body is conceived as a series of fragments that can be recomposed at will and hybridised: the sign, the trace, the cut, are intended to mutate the image. Taking the various parts of the body, already modified and marked by the tattoo and the cut, is recompose, with several elements of different individuals, creating an apparent formal and aesthetic unity that in reality is not one but many parts. The scarred and wounded body is a place of spatial experimentation, it is shattered and recomposed, it presents itself in the form of directions, elements that overlap, intersect, trace relationships with the surface, reveal themselves as other than what they actually are. The attempt communicates the sense of the human condition in the face of a destabilising reality.

Is a deeply personal and evocative project that delves into the delicate balance between strength and vulnerability. Is work explores resilience through fragility. Each piece reflects my journey of living with endometriosis, a chronic condition that has profoundly shaped my identity and perspective. Through photography and mixed media, I explore the themes of pain, resilience, and renewal, capturing the intricate layers of what it means to live within a fragile yet unyielding body. This work serves as both a reflection and a conversation: a space where vulnerability transforms into empowerment, and fragility becomes a testament to inner strength.

Body Modification II

Mutazioni Contemporanee Progetto ACCADE Galleria A+A, Venezia digital photo

Photo and collage art concept by Alice Brunello Luise

A project inspired by Ukai (cormorant fishing) concept and Style by Zixuan Liu

Photo assistant: Mattia Ferrari, Model: Weiwei Lin, MUA: Perla Rangheri, Retouch: Alessandro Fabbro. A special thank to Digital Touch, Verona ITA

Shape of my Heart

My new works speak of a radical change that has not only occurred in my private life but has been reflected above all in my way of conceiving the primary need that I had when I started again with my creative research: to externalize my personal experience with all the series of emotions and deprivations that my disease Endometriosis has led me to live. Starting from the sentence “Although you are literally in a thousand pieces, you can be a masterpiece in another form”, starting from my pieces, I needed to cut, break, fold, glue, color, I needed gestures, signs, strength. So, this new type of research speaks of my “thousands pieces”, of how they must be collected, glued together, held together tightly by courage and resilience. This work also speaks of my first person singular and of the landscapes of my heart.

Love is Clockworks

Mixed media on paper

Surreal & Family Portrait

What is your relationship with yourself and with mirrors? What do you see reflected? How do you recognize your image? Living with a chronic illness (Endometriosis and Adenomiosis) sometimes feels like living a surreal life. That's what I see in the mirror: pieces of someone that I sometimes don't recognize, and at times, I couldn't even recognize myself among my family, who didn’t understand my suffering. I have intimately experienced my existence from the outside, imagining myself as part of a community more similar to me.

mixed media collage of vintage photographs and paper

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