L'istinto ha preservato la mia specie

L’istinto ha preservato la mia specie (Instinct Has Preserved My Species) is a multi-voiced exhibition where Luca Petti’s latest body of unpublished works meets the Fabio Frasca Collection. The exhibition is promoted by Attiva Cultural Projects in collaboration with the Museum of Natural History of Verona and the Guastini Artistic Foundry in Vicenza. Curated by Martina Campese, Letizia Mari, and Alberto Navilli, the exhibition presents Luca Petti’s latest sculptures—works that explore the symbiotic relationship between living beings—within the first exhibition project of the Fabio Frasca Collection. This collection features a selection of internationally renowned artists, including Gaëlle Choisne (Cherbourg, 1985), Aria Dean (Los Angeles, 1993), Bri Williams (Long Beach, 1993), Irene Fenara (Bologna, 1990), Grant Mooney (Seattle, 1990), and Isadora Neves Marques (Lisbon, 1984). Luca Petti’s practice (Benevento, 1990) is characterized by his use of sculpture as a means of reflecting on the living element and imagining organisms that merge animal and vegetal traits. This condition of species hybridization — scientifically known as endosymbiosis — depicts living beings coexisting in unpredictable configurations, as remnants of a past era or as entities existing in a dystopian, post-human future. As the artist explains: "With the title Endosymbionts, I refer to plant species that connect with elements from the animal kingdom, where predatory and instinctive characteristics—aimed at defense and survival—coexist within a single body. In other words, animals that live inside other animals, species that exist within other species, engaged in a continuous dialectic of mutual benefit." Each endosymbiont thus becomes a paradigm of interspecies hybridization and temporal nomadism, manifested through a precise display strategy: akin to natural specimens, the works are presented with the rigor of a scientific museographic system. This device becomes an integral part of Petti’s research, not only positioning the sculpture within space but also acting as a theoretical staging of a new species, with a taxidermic approach reminiscent of the early museological precedents of the Wunderkammern — spaces dedicated to cataloging and preserving the marvelous. In dialogue with Petti’s sculptures, six works from the Fabio Frasca Collection explore the exhibition’s underlying themes. Isadora Neves Marques' environmental herbarium, a manifesto of the political and economic ties between botany and colonialism, and Gaëlle Choisne’s photographic installation resonate with Irene Fenara’s video work on the "struggle for life”. Meanwhile, more sculptural pieces, such as Aria Dean’s clapperless cowbell — an object stripped of its function of domestication—intertwine with Bri Williams’ fossil research, which employs materials rich in memory and temporal stratification. Grant Mooney’s vegetal-inspired works, linked to organic forms in transition, further contribute to shaping an exhibition environment that questions the unstable and interconnected nature of living beings. Through the synergy between Luca Petti’s sculptures and the works from the Fabio Frasca Collection, the exhibition reflects on transformation as an essential condition. The dialogue among the artists becomes a map of connections between disciplines, sensibilities, and imaginaries, where instinct translates into new forms of coexistence and interspecies interaction.