How do we relate to the spaces we inhabit? What memories reside in materials—and how do they shape us, just as we shape them?
These questions are the starting point of my practice.
Growing up between cultures and countries, I’ve long navigated a sense of in-betweenness—between languages, landscapes, and ways of belonging. This layered experience informs my work, grounding it in the understanding that space is not neutral. Landscapes hold memory; materials carry stories; the act of inhabiting is never passive.
Working with found objects, photographs, textiles, clay, and video, I draw from what is close—what is weathered, touched, or left behind. My process begins with collecting: gestures, fragments, and impressions in the form of stones, leaves, photos or videos. In the studio, I layer and reassemble these elements into installations and visual compositions.
In this way, I explore the personal, collective, and ecological stories embedded in the materials and environments we move through. These connections are rooted in specific times and places, but also reflect an intimate, critical, and reflective process of mapping space.
The intent is to shift the focus, inviting an attunement to presence. The aim is not to offer resolution, but to hold space for complexity and question the fragmentary view we often have.
Bio
Zoë Rivas Zanello lives and works between Trieste (IT) and London (UK).
She studied Fine Arts at the Istituto d'Arte 'G. Sello' in Udine, specialising in pictorial, sculptural and architectural skills, and then went on to complete a BSc in Psychology at the University of Trieste in 2018, writing a thesis about Neuroesthetics. In 2020, she obtained an MA in Arts and Heritage at Maastricht University with a thesis about the Sustainability of International Artist Residencies in London. She has completed two years at Turps Independent Art School in London (Correspondence Course, 2022-2024).
Alongside her artistic research, Zoë Rivas Zanello works as a freelance arts professional. She currently works in communication and development for the Dutch art foundation The Artist and the Others.
