Luis Alberto Rodriguez and Afra Zamara
Photographer and Set Designer | Mahler & LeWitt Studios and Carla Fendi Foundation Residency | 2023
From childhood, Luis Alberto Rodriguez trained as a dancer before earning a BFA from Juilliard School. Photography, a long-standing personal passion, became his profession after fifteen years of performing worldwide as a dancer. His research now continues through the study of the human body in motion, which he often portrays in sculptural and abstract ways. Having lived in Europe for many years — first in Berlin and later in Paris — and the recipient of numerous international awards, Rodriguez is regarded as one of the most compelling emerging figures working between art and fashion. In 2020 he published his first photography book, People of the Mud, released by Loose Joint, exploring the ways cultures shape and are shaped by individuals.
Afra Zamara, an Italian set designer born in Nigeria and based in London, frequently collaborates with Rodriguez. Her practice focuses on creating environments with an ecological sensibility grounded in the deconstruction and reuse of materials. Zamara graduated from the London College of Communication with an initial interest in photography, but was later drawn to the collaborative spirit and creative energy of set design. She is known for supporting and highlighting emerging talents through the staging of her sets.
Together with Rodriguez, the residency project culminated in the exhibition Legàmi, presented at the former baptistery of Manna d’Oro in Spoleto. For the exhibition, the two artists — alongside curator Guy Robertson — selected costumes and accessories from the Festival’s archive of over 3,000 pieces dating from the 1960s to the 2000s, reinterpreting them in new expressive contexts and exploring the relationships between performance, dress, and identity.
.jpg)