Cesare Pietroiusti, the collective Zeroscena and Carola Cappellari
Date: 11 JUNE 2026
In an open and informal dialogue, some of the Italian artists involved in the project CAFE: Redefining Café Houses as Unique European Cultural Heritage will present their research, sharing creative processes, artistic practices, and the outcomes of the work developed throughout the project.
Long-standing places of encounter, exchange, and cultural experimentation, Europe’s historic cafés have served as democratic spaces of artistic and social innovation. Moving between literary chronicle, avant-garde movements, and Venetian tradition, the meeting will reflect on what remains today of that memory and on how these places can still generate relationships, thought, and contemporary creativity.
The participating artists will be: Cesare Pietroiusti, the collective Zeroscena — currently in residence at the studios of the Emeroteca dell’Arte in Mestre — and Carola Cappellari.
We look forward to seeing you.
📆 Thursday, June 11, at 11:00 a.m.
📍 Caffè Letterario dell’Emeroteca dell’Arte, Piazza Erminio Ferretto 125, Mestre (VE)
🎟️ Free admission
The event is organised in cooperation with Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia Emeroteca dell’Arte.
The CAFÉ: Redefining Café Houses as unique European Cultural Heritage project is co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme.
Message of Zeroscena to the parallel event in Hungary:
The Artists
Carola Cappellari
Carola Cappellari (Venice, 1995) is a documentary photographer who intertwines autobiographical experiences with broader themes such as identity, family, belonging, and migration. She regards photography as a tool of co-creation, often enriched by performance, installations, and participatory practices. After graduating in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication (2019), she obtained a degree in Human Rights and Migration at the University of Bologna (2022). In 2023 she won a scholarship to attend the Jack London School of Photography and Literature and was a finalist at the Canon Student Development Programme with the project Sons of the Sun. In 2024 she was selected for the annual residency “Bevilacqua La Masa” by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia. She has exhibited her work in international venues such as Tate Modern, Casa degli Artisti in Milan, and Artefiera Bologna, with publications in magazines including Time Magazine and Aesthetica Magazine.
mail: carolacappellari.hello@gmail.com
IG: @carolacappellari
web: www.carolacappellari.com
Cesare Pietroiusti
Cesare Pietroiusti (1955, Rome) is a visual artist, co-founder of the Jartrakor Study Center, Rome (1977) and of the Rivista di Psicologia dell’Arte (1979). He was one of the coordinators of the “Oreste” residencies and projects (1997–2001), MFA Faculty at LUCAD, Lesley University, Boston (2009–2016), and is Co-Founder and President of the Fondazione Lac o Le Mon, San Cesario di Lecce (2015–ongoing). Since 2004 he has been Lecturer in Laboratorio Arti Visive at IUAV, Venice, and since 2021 at NABA, Rome.
Since 1977 he has exhibited in private and public spaces, official or unconventional, in Italy and abroad. With a background as a psychiatrist, Pietroiusti has always shown a specific interest in paradoxical or seemingly unreasonable situations, commonly “considered too insignificant to become the subject of analysis or representation.” In 2019, MAMbo in Bologna dedicated a large retrospective to him, entitled “Un certo numero di cose 1955–2019” (a project that received the 2018 Italian Council grant).
Website: http://www.pensierinonfunzionali.net/
Zeroscena
ZEROSCENA is a multidisciplinary collective based in Venice, active since 2020 in the fields of installation, video, and photography. It is composed of Elisa La Boria (Udine, 1998) and Luka Bagnoli (Rimini, 1998), both graduates of the Master’s program in Visual Arts at IUAV University of Venice. From December 2024 to September 2025 they are among the artists in residence at the ateliers of Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa and MUVE.
Among their latest works: Riscritti e rimossi (2025), a photographic project focused on the archive of the former psychiatric hospital of San Servolo, Venice; HACKERARE M0N0P0L1 (2025), a participatory work on the theme of the housing crisis, developed in collaboration with Francesco Chiodelli (University of Turin).
Their work has been presented and exhibited in various contexts, including Museo del Manicomio di San Servolo (Venice, 2025), Video Sound Art Festival (Milan, 2024), spazioSERRA (Milan, 2024), Ibrida Festival (Forlì, 2023), and Lac o Le Mon (Lecce, 2023).