Sonia’s Trees (2018-2021)
Letizia Lopreiato

Sonia’s Trees (2018-2021) is a labour of love, a manifestation in physical form of a call to protect and an invitation to care, felt and shared by the artist through her visual poetry performative creative process. Sonia’s Trees is the result of over three and half years of creative work by visual poet and film photographer Letizia Lopreiato. The body of work developed as a social documentary on eco-sustainability, utilising participative observation based on sociology and environmental psychology research methodology; Letizia chose to embody this documentary process through the life-changing events of the story’s protagonist, Sonia McGuirk, a dear friend and single mum from Dublin who decided to relocate to the West of Ireland in early 2018, looking for a more heart centred and sustainable life for herself and the family she has been raising.

Each edition of Sonia’s Trees artbook comprises of five accordion folded photobooks, printed on Munken Pure Rough housed in a Sirio Colour Pietra card mailer/slipcase, containing acknowledgements and introductory letters written by the artist, outlining the project’s concept. Also included is the artist’s handmade art-packs made with recycled material, and containing Irish native seeds from organic farms in County Clare and County Cork, as well as a Polaroid format printed photograph from the project, a sign of gratitude from the artist to her audience; her action in support of her ‘artivism’ awareness campaign on eco-sustainability, which Sonia’s Trees is the pilot project of, starting point of an international cooperation and development social documentaries’ series she is creating, titled “The Journey of Sonia’s Trees”.
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Letizia Lopreiato is a multilingual visual poet and film photographer supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, while she is working with 35mm photography, poetry, spoken word, and Super 8 film, to develop her autobiographical and social documentary practice, with an art-photography style. Magnum Photos Portfolio Review featured artist (2020), Lopreiato embraced film photography in February 2018, after her visual impairment diagnosis. The artist writes and performs her poetry in English, Italian and Spanish, her work is published internationally, in the UK, Ireland and Italy. Lopreiato is a professional member of Visual Artists Ireland, her work is part of Ireland’s Office of Public Works State Art Collection.

The artist comes from a Magna Cum Laude research background in International Relations and over a decade international program-management experience in the technology industry across four different countries (Ireland, Spain, Denmark, Italy). Her interest lies in the application of barrier-free technologies for pluri-diversity inclusion, access and equality. Lopreiato’s artistic practice is engaged in reclaiming a different way to tell a story: from empathy to connection, from impairment to empowerment, from grief to love, from confinement to acceptance, social engagement and equality for our environment, both at an individual and at a community level. ²