Livia Bertacca
Dirty Art Department
Biography
Livia Bertacca is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in Amsterdam. Drawing inspiration from feminist sci-fi fiction, fantasy culture and worldbuilding methodology, their research explores the free play of imagination and fantastical language as accessible, anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchal tools. Using puppetry, theatrical performance and collective storytelling, they create fantastical scenarios and immersive sets designed to be collectively inhabited, activated and experienced.

Mondo Fatuo
Mondo Fatuo is a short fantastic bedtime story unfolding inside a haunted dream—filled with glowing eyes, croaking creatures and a life-giving tree. Blending fictional worldbuilding, theater and puppetry techniques and brought to life collectively through collaboration with other artists—the performance presents a dreamlike scenario in which a spooky woodworm and a young girl talk about the urgency of recovering our childhood, our identities and our right to play as a critique of today’s capitalist-driven and individualistic society. "For fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living. They are afraid of dragons because they are afraid of freedom. So I believe we should trust our children." Ursula K.Le Guin