Everyday heroines who are not afraid to show their imperfect bodies and challenge conventional aesthetic models to be reborn stronger than before. From 20 October to 15 November 2020, the Tuscan artist Eleonora Santanni proposes a site specific project dedicated to women for the spaces of the Lu.CCA Lounge & Underground: “Le Scapate. God save me! ”, Curated by Maurizio Vanni and Elisabetta Rizzuto, which will be presented to the public on Saturday 24 October at 5 pm. The exhibition, with free admission, is sponsored by the Municipality of Lucca with the technical support of Poliart, Ariann Comfort Dream , Eleste Architetti and IM - Ilaria Meoni Graphic Design.

Being a woman today requires inner strength, resourcefulness, patience, dedication, analytical ability and a predisposition to creativity to overcome those social rules that too often limit the freedom to live, to feel beautiful, intelligent and a leader regardless of physical appearance. “Santanni's compositions - explains co-curator Maurizio Vanni - investigate headless female bodies on which the scars, as coordinates of existential geographical maps, recall each of the dramatic events that characterized its evolution. The freedom to be there and to live has cost pain and frustration, discomfort and humiliation on the part of a 'world' built on the surface of all things ”.

Eleonora Santanni starts from her personal experience - an illness made her lose a part of her body - to put the theme of the woman's body at the center of her research and reflection. "In her artistic career - says co-curator Elisabetta Rizzuto - she re-elaborates the concept of 'contemporary Venus' through a language that welcomes contaminations from primitive art, street art, pop art, advertising and fashion, giving life to a production that stands out for the variety of languages that include installations, sculptures in plastic material, material paintings and digital prints ". In fact, his works have a great visual and emotional impact, and playing on the edge of irony, they want to launch positive messages. "In this period of pandemic crisis, which severely threatens the freedom of being a woman - explains Rizzuto -, Queen Elizabeth II, a 'runaway' pop icon, becomes a symbol of those who believe that women have a fundamental role in the complex process of humanization of our company. It is no coincidence that 'God save the Queen' becomes ironically 'God save me!' ".

“The Scapate - as Santanni herself describes - are visionary and free people, with an irrepressible mind, which cannot be on the neck and therefore metaphorically headless”. The protagonists of her works are therefore courageous and intelligent women who go to the conquest of a new femininity, the one that goes beyond the ideal physical canons and opens up to the depth of the mind. “Courage - concludes Vanni - always pays, while not eliminating fear, brings awareness and self-awareness, leads to that emancipation that neutralizes the thought of an ideal aesthetic for the benefit of inner beauty. Everything that seemed dramatically lost forever due to the disfigurement of the body and soul is transformed into a symbol of endurance, tenacity and perseverance. The vanity of the essence: pleasing and loving each other in order to love and be an example to follow ".