. R and N .

R and N | Between Fairy Tale and Civil Drama | 2025-2026

How necessary is it for bodies, in their vulnerability, to be able to move freely in the world, to act, to meet?

Which bodies can exercise power? Which are granted self-determination?
Balancing between fairy tale and civil drama, the installation originates from a staged photography project based on the play Ranotte e Nalù, by the theater company Les Moustaches, an act of total theater that tells the story of a femicide:

Nalù, a mermaid, is killed by Ranotte, a fisherman, her former partner.

In the performance, fiction enters the living matter of a lake, and during its unfolding, Ranotte and Nalù change their skin: beneath their scales lies hell.

Hence my decision to involve all the bodies, from those photographed to those experiencing the installation.

The photographs, whose texture recalls the transparency and fluidity of water, evoke tea towels hung in a domestic setting.

Viewers are invited to open them— in one case even to wet their hands— so they can observe them and give space to the story they convey.

The post-production of the photographs, done by hand with brushstrokes of acrylic paint, is a slow and necessary process, that disrupts and stratifies meaning, progressively rendering the female body, historically a site of violence, into a hybrid, animalistic, and fleeing element: a battlefield for self-determination and freedom opening the story to a different epilogue.

The sound is coming from a Bluetooth speaker that can be placed anywhere in the room, evokes the fluid noises we perceive and generate underwater while holding our breath, amplifying the sense of immersion. It’s composed by Gianluca Agostini on three layers of different lengths in a loop to ensure it can play for hours without ever repeating.

Les Moustaches Theatre Play Ranotte e Nalù Credits | Directed by Alberto Fumagalli and Ludovica D’Auria | Written by Alberto Fumagalli | with Margherita Bigazzi, Federico Bizzarri, Alberto Fumagalli and Ludovica D’auria | Assistant Director Tommaso Ferrero | Costumes Giulio Morini | Production Manager Pietro Morbelli