, Jenna Basso Pietrobon is an artist who fearlessly explores society through her personal experiences. She offers a 

 of political, economic, and social systems, using a blend of painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, psychology, performance, and activism. When attending her Masters in Fine Arts at Columbia University in New York two of her professors, 

 had a large impact on the trajectory of her practice. After graduating this program in 2017, Basso Pietrobon moved to her 

to explore the culture and histories which impacted her life. Here she further explored producing art using 

 from factories across the country. After dissecting the histories in Italy and transferring them through art, Basso Pietrobon's practice has grown and expanded to global issues and missions. Her practice is categorized using different points that she refers to as the 

I was born in 1986 and have experienced firsthand the powerlessness that is a recurrent theme for my generation. From the 2008 economic collapse to the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, millennial adulthood is a story of disappointed expectations. While acknowledging the hurt that these crises have caused, I also see these events as an opportunity to re-evaluate faulty systems and to purge the repressed secrets, anxieties, and systemic injustices that brought us to this point of governmental and economic collapse. I also challenge the underlying moral beliefs that continue to motivate damaging ways of life—for example, the fetishization of hard work.


When you ask Basso Pietrobon about the core of her practice, she explains: "I am not afraid of using my practice as an outlet for emotion—and many of my projects are geared towards uncovering human psychology and motivations. I aim to reimagine society’s structure and relationship with wealth through critical works that envision and enact supportive, women-led leadership models within the arts and, hopefully, the world at large. I use projects such as Dimmi, Amore and The Fondamenta to turn the system on itself and spread. Ultimately, I see my works as sites of encounter, open invitations to my viewer to reinvent themselves and the world around them. I perform the drama of life so that my viewers can see their own lives more clearly and feel less alone. Do you see me? Do you feel me? Do you hear me? Do you receive me? Do you see yourself? Do you find yourself? Are you witnessing yourself?"

 Sarah Sze said "you had such a unique past working in architecture, fashion, dance, and lighting -- and since all these are a form of art, I want to see you mix all these fields together rather than keeping them separate."  That advice gave Basso Pietrobon the courage to focus on mixing these fields, and allowed her to believe that she had to go where space was. As difficult as it was to leave New York, I put my practice first and left the city for a very small town an hour away from Venice -- because her distant relative offered her space in his closed down ceramic factory.

Rirkrit Tiravanija taught me the importance of community, offering social spaces for people to gather, think, and perhaps even make. This inspired The Fondamenta, and other projects such as Seasonal (Sow, Sew & So), and Bella Ciao.

Many of my works repurpose discarded materials which vary from high-quality scraps of cashmere and marble to corroded pipes and rusted rotor discs. By giving these scraps a second life, I turn consumer culture on its head. A significant part of my use of these materials is understanding the cycle of their creation and consumption. I visit factories, learn about product histories, and spend months researching the raw materials. This process also entails collaboration—working with factory owners and employees, learning from their experiences and embodied knowledge allows me to bring the important conversation of the factory and sustainable production into the realm of art. The intention of my work is to open discussion for us all to be responsible for the affects on the planet, from the way we farm to the way we produce products, and consume – for us to think of the circular economy. I look to the future with hope, believing that we as humanity will support the planet so she can regain her health and balance.

My work registers a push-and-pull with my family legacy. I embrace the material knowledge imparted by my grandparents and parents who worked in ceramics, product design, stonemasonry, construction, textiles, acting, teaching, and entrepreneurship. I also draw heavily upon my Italian roots and, after relocating to Italy in 2019, have immersed myself in its rich cultural history, looking to reference points as varied as Giorgio de Chirico, Carlo Scarpa, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, Cy Twombly, Jannis Kounellis, Marisa Merz, Maria Montessori, Antonio Gramsci, Alighiero Boetti, and Gio Ponti.
