Ronald Pizzoferrato Set: Mi Perro + Asuizate + Print

About Mi Perro

The prison system carries a stigma, particularly in Latin America, where it often becomes entangled with organized crime and survival strategies. Ronald Pizzoferrato’s book proposes a reversal, in which dogs make their companions human, despite their hostile gaze. The images move and touch us, until suddenly something strikes a wrong note: an architecture that is too severe, a domain of men only, a harsh atmosphere that speaks of a violent background. We realize that these peaceful, happy, almost childish images come from the stark world of the Venezuelan prisons.

Far from attempting to soften, disguise, or justify, he introduces an incongruity and poses a provocation. He makes us uncomfortable. He humanizes those whom we normally dehumanize, restores order and familiarity to what we have dismissed as alien and monstrous. He arouses affection in what usually breeds hatred and fear.

Prisoners display their pets to show themselves human, to undermine the barrier of prejudice that clouds our vision. It is the dogs that humanize the men, for they remind us that those who live behind bars are, despite the exclusion and oblivion to which we condemn them, as similar to ourselves as one dog is to another. A world where we save the animal but condemn the man.

About Asuizate

This book examines migration as a daily, tangible, and often complex process of change. Through a series of images taken in Switzerland, Ronald Pizzoferrato documents the spaces, routines, and situations that shape the lives of those who arrive in a new country and seek to find their place within it. The photographs depict environments, actions, and moments that illustrate the impact of relocation: what is left behind, what is encountered, and what one must navigate in the process of adapting. Switzerland appears as an orderly and secure context, but also a demanding one, where integration requires compromise and personal redefinition.

"Asuizate" offers a direct, unembellished look at the reality of the migratory experience, inviting reflection on what remains of one’s identity and what is reshaped when living in a place that can both welcome and challenge.

Mi Perro project numbered Giclée 4x6  

Ronald Pizzoferrato (B. Caracas, 1988) is an artist and photographer based in Switzerland. His Afro-Caribbean identity informs his artistic research, with a focus on documenting the social and cultural realities of his native Venezuela, engaging global issues of identity, race, and violence. He holds a Master of Arts in Design, specializing in Trends & Identity at the Zurich University of Arts. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Bern's Studies in the Arts (SINTA), with a research focus on digitization, migration, digital humanities, and decolonization.