FRA_MENTI
5 – 13 June 2026
Fondazione Luciana Matalon, Milan
free admission
opening: tuesday 9 june, 6.00 pm
Four female photographers, four bodies of work, one common theme.
FRA_MENTI is an all-female group exhibition bringing together the work of Valentina Loffredo, Laura Pellerej, Elena Siniscalchi and Romana Zambon around a shared exploration of the fragment as a way of observing and narrating reality. The project is curated by Roberto Mutti, one of the most authoritative photography critics and historians on the Italian scene.
The four photographers come from different backgrounds and work in different styles, yet their collaboration produces a rare visual and conceptual coherence. As Mutti writes in the exhibition’s critical essay:
‘A matter of perspectives: this is how one might define this remote dialogue between the minds of four photographers who, in reality, have much in common, even if to discover this one must follow them as they probe beneath the surface of things to bring to light something deeply rooted in their most intimate dimension.’
PROJECTS
Laura Pellerej explores the themes of memory and identity through her mother’s story and the time they spent together during her illness, guided by the metaphor of the cracked egg: a container that is as reassuring as it is fragile. An autobiographical journey that becomes a collective reflection on the women of a generation that grew up with little room for self-discovery.
Elena Siniscalchi explores the portrait as a space of connection and vulnerability. Her photographs, all rendered in a warm tone that is itself a meaningful choice, fragment the body by multiplying its dimensions and angles of view, shifting the focus from the skin’s surface to facial expressions. A body that knows how to wait, feel, protect, and observe: not separate moments but testimonies of a courageous awareness.
Valentina Loffredo works on the boundary between abstraction and figuration, and on doubt as a productive space. Her images show forms that oscillate between the recognisable and the undefined: what appears abstract reveals a bodily presence, what appears bodily returns to being pure form. The work asks the viewer to resist the urge to define, but to make space for what can be more than one thing at a time.
Romana Zambon took her research to Nairobi, amongst the matatus: Kenyan city buses decorated with graffiti, pop culture references, and symbols of African and Western culture coexisting on the same bodywork. Zambon does not simply document them but fragments them, isolating surfaces, details and unexpected juxtapositions, creating—as Mutti writes—a world where reality gives way to the imagination.
info & contacts:
Fondazione Luciana Matalon
+39 02 878781
Opening hours
5–13 June 2026
10.00 am – 1.00 pm | 2.00 pm – 7.00 pm
Tuesday to Saturday
Free admission
