Drawing is the core of Marta Roberti’s (b. 1977) artistic practice, which also extends into installations and animated videos. Through these mediums, the artist explores the relationship between East and West, studying and visually reinterpreting ancient myths and narratives. Her research is grounded in the idea that the self has no fixed boundaries and is not exclusively human, placing at its center a concept of fluid, hybrid identity. Her figures, suspended between the human and the animal, evoke a sense of trans-species belonging and reflect on the possibility of an expanded identity that challenges rigid ontological distinctions. In the work, the artist depicts a nude female body mimicking the posture of a snail, evoking a gesture of defense and vulnerability, but also of resistance and transformation. The position, intentionally unnatural and physically unsustainable for a human body, stems from a careful study of the defensive stances adopted by threatened animals. Drawing thus becomes a tool to explore the boundaries of the body, of species, and of identity. In this sense, the self-portrait takes the form of an othered body (pangolin), embodying crisis but also the potential for a new alliance between the human and the non-human.