Monica Mazzotto

When I walk within the walls of an abandoned place, I feel its past, its life before it was abandoned. It’s story flows before my eyes, my camera’s lens, and while I take the picture, I see the walls looking back to me. They come back to life.
And what I find is so alive, it is so full of energy. The apparent absence of life, on the contrary, soon becomes populated with every animal species.
The human is absent, he has left the stage empty. He first invaded and then withdrew, giving Nature an opportunity to come back center stage, and to reclaim a lost and wounded kingdom.
In my photographs I present abandoned spaces, but inhabited by the livelihood of animals, a vital element inside the ruin of our world. In this unusual balance, there is space for everyone. It is a game where the likelihood of the context loses importance, and the possibilities of a new reality become the true focus of the experience.
My photographs are a combination of irony, imperfections and harmony, and represent the intersection between my two identities: ethologist and photographer.

Graduate in Natural Sciences from the University of Turin, Italy.
PhD in Animal Biology from the University of Pisa, Italy.

2024
- Art Padova, Italy
- TEN by TEN, Jackson Junge Gallery Chicago, US
- Surreal Salon, Jackson Junge Gallery Chicago US
- Paratissima, Art Exhibition Turin, Italy
- Art Verona, Italy
- MIA Photo Fair, Milan, Italy
- Liquida Festival, Turin, Italy.

2023
- Urban Photo Awards 2023, Trieste, Italy
- 19 th Pollux Awards Exhibition, group exhibition,
- FotoNostrum Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
- TEN by TEN, group exhibition, Jackson Junge Gallery, Chicago, United States

2022
- “My House Your House”, solo exhibition, Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago, United States
- Paratissima Art Exhibition Turin, Italy
- Vermillion, group exhibition, Northbrook, Illinois, United States
- “Pop Up art exhibition”, group exhibition, Chicago, Illinois, United States
- “Visions of Detroit”, solo exhibition, Troy, Michigan, United States