How kinetic art, broken bodies, and invisible threads bring us closer to nature
In Shoreditch, art isn’t just something you hang on a wall — it spills onto streets, wraps around light posts, and disrupts your morning coffee. That same energy, that buzzing sense of creative unrest, finds its echo in Micaela Lattanzio’s latest contemporary art series, “Restless Nature.” This isn’t your typical still-life. It’s art in motion, breathing, shifting, and unsettling — in the best possible way.
Lattanzio’s works explore the connection between body, matter, and nature through fragmentation, geometry, and air. Yes, air. Her installations don’t just sit still; they respond to their environment. As the air moves, so do her works. Everything is in flux, and nothing is ever quite as it seems.
Exploring the kinetic force behind the human condition
“Restless Nature” focuses on the dynamic force of moving matter. At its core, it’s about the chaotic beauty of being alive. The works are built from deconstructed photographs of human bodies, cut into fragments and rearranged — not into order, but into movement. They hover in space, interacting with light, air, and the energy of the room.
Forget portraits. This is about perception. Lattanzio strips away the conventional image and rebuilds it in tune with nature’s logic — unpredictable, fluid, and strangely harmonious. Her pieces behave like organisms, pulsing with quiet life. They speak a language that’s not quite visual, not quite emotional — but definitely human.
For more kinetic explorations of identity, check out our interview with Thiago Barbalho, whose abstract forms echo a similar emotional depth.
Art that lives, breathes, and breaks the rules
Using photography as a raw material, Lattanzio creates kinetic mosaics that twist traditional forms into something wild and free. She cuts photographs into countless tiny pieces — a ritual in itself — and reweaves them into something new. The result is neither painting nor sculpture but something delightfully in-between.
Her work doesn’t just challenge aesthetic norms. It also dismantles the idea of the body as fixed, knowable, or singular. In a world obsessed with flawless surfaces, Lattanzio goes deeper. She finds beauty in brokenness. In fragments. In the complexity of being human.
A call to reconnect with nature — and ourselves
But here’s the twist: “Restless Nature” isn’t just about the body. It’s about the invisible threads connecting us to the environment. Lattanzio sees the body as a channel of perception — a filter for experience, not the whole story. Through her art, she urges us to abandon narrow, rational frameworks and lean into the messy truth of existence.
She’s not asking for control. She’s asking for curiosity. To step outside of our comfort zones and let nature, in all its unpredictability, teach us something about who we are.
From Rome to the world — and maybe a wall in Shoreditch?
Born in Rome and trained at the Academy of Fine Arts, Micaela Lattanzio has built a practice rooted in anthropology, photography, and experimental media. Her influences range from Havana to Valencia, with each city adding layers to her aesthetic language. She’s shown work everywhere from Art Lima Peru to Context Art Miami, and even collaborated on a book cover with poet and singer-songwriter Mary Lambert.
But her real magic? It’s in how she turns fragments into wholeness, giving chaos a voice and vulnerability a shape. Her installations have appeared in cloisters, museums, public spaces — and yes, even on cruise ships (we’re looking at you, Royal Caribbean). Each space becomes part of the work, influencing how it moves, how it breathes, how it speaks.
The emotional power of broken geometry
The geometry in her work isn’t clean or cold. It’s emotional. Her pieces suggest movement, memory, and trauma — and yet they remain beautiful. As viewers, we’re drawn into their orbit. We don’t just observe; we participate. Our emotions, our breathing, even the way we walk around the room becomes part of the piece.
It’s the kind of introspection that feels oddly radical. In a world that demands constant productivity and perfection, Lattanzio invites stillness — not in body, but in thought. A moment to reflect. To feel. To reconnect.
A Shoreditch mindset on a global stage
What makes Lattanzio’s vision especially relevant to Shoreditch creatives? It’s that same restless, boundary-breaking spirit. Just like the artists, designers, and dreamers who call East London home, she refuses to be boxed in. Her work is not just art — it’s a question, a conversation, a kinetic invitation to wake up and feel more.
In the era of AI portraits and polished social feeds, “Restless Nature” cuts through the noise. It reminds us that beauty is in motion. Meaning is found in chaos. And that being human — deeply, wonderfully human — is an art form in itself.