May 2026
The work stems from exploring the relationship between female animal bodies and the dairy industry — ending up weaving together questions of bodily autonomy, interspecies solidarity, and the tension between time imposed by society and time felt from within- amplified to all female bodies.
' Tender, Full Fat ' opens toward the possibility of a different relationship between species, between bodies, between systems of care and systems of use.
Video, sound, oat milk cartons, plaster, fabric.
Many thanks to:
Sylvia, the cow on screen, rescued from intensive farming. She now lives an happy life at the Retreat Animal sanctuary, Ashford, Kent, UK
Billy H Thompson, Founder & Project director of the Retreat Animal Rescue & Cafe
Lea Anderson, acting on screen
Luca Rocchini, director of photography and camera operator
Antoniya Geogieva, assistant on set
Mi guardi come si guarda un fil di ferro in uno stagno.
Maria Giovanna Abbate with Ladifatou Traore, Nare Davtyan, Miho Tanaka, Gaetano Fabozzi, Heli Keskikallio. Tessuto sonoro di Andrea Laudante.
March 2026
L’acqua che attraversa i sogni fluisce oltre i confini della forma. Silenziose e invisibili mutazioni affiorano dai corpi che esplorano lo spazio di LEMBI. La metamorfosi diventa strategia,l’instabilità paradigma. Qui, l’acqua è gorgoglio fecondo, mormorio pullulante, emblema e mito:meditazioni sul “divenire altro”. Plasticità endocrine rallentano la fine.
Arriverà mai una fine?
L’installazione presentata per LEMBI si inserisce in una ricerca più ampia avviata nel 2021 lungo le sponde del fiume Volturno- un percorso che abbraccia la complessità e l’interrelazione come metodologie per attraversare e ripensare le tradizionali categorie di interpretazione della realtà.
You look at me as one might look at a piece of wire in a pond.
Maria Giovanna Abbate with Ladifatou Traore, Nare Davtyan, Miho Tanaka, Gaetano Fabozzi, Heli Keskikallio. Sound design by Andrea Laudante.
March 2026
The water that flows through dreams flows beyond the boundaries of form. Silent and invisible transformations emerge from the bodies exploring the space of LEMBI. Metamorphosis becomes a strategy; instability, a paradigm. Here, water is a fertile gurgle, a teeming murmur, an emblem and a myth: meditations on ‘becoming something else’. Endocrine plasticity delay the end.
Will there ever be an end?
The installation presented for LEMBI forms part of a wider research project launched in 2021 along the banks of the River Volturno – a journey that embraces complexity and interrelation as methodologies for traversing and rethinking traditional categories of interpretation of reality.
Out of Practice
Francisca Aires Mateus
January 2026
Esercizi per navigare le Ombre
a cura di Matilde Consoli
21 December 2025
LEMBI presents LEMBI- Part II : SUCCO DENTRO
Michela De Nichilo
Autumn 2025