We recently had the chance to connect with Alicka and have shared our conversation below.
Good morning Alicka, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
Lately, I have been feeling very tormented artistically. I have always suffered from depression and tried to manage it as best I could, but recently I had an exhibition in Paris that made me rediscover myself. It is very easy to forget who we are in our daily lives. I find myself when I travel, and this trip reminded me of who I was. I had been lost for about two years.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Alla Chiara Luzzitelli, aka Alicka, was born on 16 May 1998 in Litpetzk, Russia. She lived for eight years in the orphanage before being adopted by the Italian family Luzzitelli, with whom she moved to Turin, Italy. She began her artistic career in her adolescence when, on the occasion of Paratissima 2014, the annual art event in Turin, she presented her first photographic project, entitled “How people would never want to show themselves”. Thanks to this experience, the artist has the opportunity to meet different personalities, including the art critic Giorgio Bonomi, with whom she realizes a project on self-portrait, permanently exhibited in the Musinf Gallery in Senigallia. In the following years she participated in several exhibitions including those at the galleries Satura, Genoa 2014, and Crivelli, Bergamo 2015; then at the Biennale di Genova 2015 Expo Intl contemporary art, winner of the Emerging Artist Award, Paratissima Torino 2015, Genova ART Expo 2016. In the same years she studied photography and graphics at the “Albe Steiner” institute in Turin and worked as a photographer in Milan for several agencies; she graduated from high school in 2019. In her teenage years she continued to develop her writing through poems that would not be released until 2022, the year in which she decided to write a collection of new poems joining them to those written previously. After high school, she began her studies in cinematography in Turin, taking a specialization in direction with Gianni Amelio. In 2019, in collaboration with the composer Mattia Vlad Morleo, she made an album of poems entitled Procedura di Liberazione, from which she made a short film that earned her the Lorenzo il magnifico award, the second place at the biennial in Florence and participation in five film festivals around the world.
In 2022 she felt the need to finally give space to her writings, and thus began the writing of the poetic collection Otto Betulle, a title that derives from her childhood and the number of years lived in the country of origin.
Last but not least she won “Lorenzo Il Magnifico” award for her short movie “Otto Betulle” at the Florence Biennale 2023.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I was unfertilized soil, undrunk water, and unpicked flowers, something raw but already with a core, something that still needed to develop, something hidden, sometimes even painful; then anger, resentment, desire, fatigue, joy, and the hunger to perceive my own self pushed me to come out of my shell.
When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
Pain should never be hidden; at least for me, it is a fundamental stage of my growth. Pain needs time, like everything else. you have to feel it deeply, and when you reach the bottom, you understand that it is a lesson. It is very difficult to control, especially because we as human beings are very instinctive. It is not easy. Pain becomes strength when you manage to look beyond the generality of life after touching the most sensitive part of your soul. Only then can you begin to build a shell and manage it. In my opinion, art often derives from understanding this.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Is the public version of you the real you?
We all wear masks, it’s inevitable and also a way of protecting ourselves. We are all children of Pirandello, from his work “One, No One and One Hundred Thousand.” We are children of deception, we need to constantly defend ourselves, especially emotionally. So, on the one hand, my public persona is real, but I don’t reveal everything about myself. I leave that to my art.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
Care about the people and regard my boundaries.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @allachiaraluzzitelli
- Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCU0wxdHU_rP4sGDpG-SmqPQ
Image Credits
All credits to Alla Chiara Luzzitelli
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
