Lina Bertucci's 'Mother, Daughter, Desert Moon' explores maternal bonds in Rajasthan at Eleni Koroneou Gallery

Lina Bertucci presents her photographic project 'Mother, Daughter, Desert Moon' at Eleni Koroneou Gallery in Athens. The exhibition examines the complex relationships between mothers and daughters in Rajasthan's Thar Desert, where patriarchal traditions have long influenced daily life. Bertucci's work, informed by feminist and postcolonial thinkers like Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Arundhati Roy, documents how education creates new forms of agency that reshape family and community expectations. The project began nearly fifteen years ago through Bertucci's involvement with CITTA and the vision to build the Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls School in this remote region. Using portraiture with ethnographic sensitivity, Bertucci positions photography as an ethical practice that witnesses cultural evolution rather than defining it. Visually, her approach aligns with artists like Walker Evans and Dayanita Singh who emphasize clarity and the dignity of everyday life over spectacle. The work traces dialogues between daughters' emerging futures and their mothers' enduring traditions, revealing how women negotiate identity and transformation. Bertucci, who lives and works in New York, holds an M.F.A. from Pratt Institute and a B.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin. Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including MoMA and the New Museum in New York, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, and the Hara Museum in Tokyo.