We perform Dear Lucy about italian colonial past and anthropology, with Tina Salvadori Paz

Dear Lucy by Rilaben and Tina Salvadori Paz

FRIDAY 10/10 · 18:00 – 20:00
📍U10 Art Space

Having discovered that both their family histories were marked by relatives who fought in Ethiopia as part of the colonial army, Rilaben and Tina Salvadori Paz created a performative installation drawing from Rilaben’s family archive. The piece focuses on letters written by Rilaben’s grandfather Don Peppe, who in 1935 joined fascist troops as a doctor in Ethiopia and remained there even after the war. These letters, addressed to his sister Lucia, converge with another figure bearing the same name: Lucy, the famous Australopithecus afarensis discovered in Ethiopia in the 1970s. Known in Amharic as Dinqinesh (“you are wonderful”), Lucy remains a potent symbol in Ethiopia and worldwide. Layering voice, image, and text, Dear Lucy constructs a scenic device that activates echoes between empire, intimacy and fossil memory.

Enrico L’Abbate (aka Rilaben) is a multidisciplinary artist working with body, movement, space and voice. Valentina Lapolla (aka Tina Salvadori Paz) is a multimedia artist working across video, photography, and installation. Longtime collaborators, they develop site-specific works at the intersection of performance, visual arts and archival exploration.

📸 Johannes Puch