DECAMERON-19: dispatches from the isolated city
A transnational collaboration from cities around the world, generating 100 stories in response to life during the global pandemic.
Shown as a group exhibtion and film installation at CENTRE OF GRAVITY at Gardiner Huskins Soapworks in Bristol & at Sunaparanta Centre of the Arts in Goa in October 2020
The project drew inspiration from the literature of
plague, in particular Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’, in which
ten characters, sheltering in an empty villa outside
Florence, tell each other stories whilst in isolation from
the Black Death of 1348. DECAMERON-19, by contrast,
played out in the digital present, physically and virtually,
in our streets and public spaces, under open skies and
in cyber-space.
A network of artists from cities across the globe, many of whom were initially strangers to each other, met weekly, virtually, to narrate stories lived, retold and performed through the project’s methodology of exchanging scores.
Each contributor, in turn, wrote and presented a score which became a tool for exploring the edges of shared and separate space. The embodied and situated responses, reflected the common and uniquely spatial, psychological, social and political conditions we found ourselves in during an era of global lockdowns.
By interpreting the same score in different contexts, Decameronistas mapped their localities, and exchanged their experience of making work in differing states of lockdown, restrictive policy measures and economic constraints. The emergent work, and the emergent colleagueship and friendship, sustained the group. The weekly conversations connected and mapped different perspectives. They helped us to explore the role of art in finding resource in the present moment and in imagined futures. The result was the co-production of new knowledge about the nature of living through multidimensional crises.
A network of artists from cities across the globe, many of whom were initially strangers to each other, met weekly, virtually, to narrate stories lived, retold and performed through the project’s methodology of exchanging scores.
Each contributor, in turn, wrote and presented a score which became a tool for exploring the edges of shared and separate space. The embodied and situated responses, reflected the common and uniquely spatial, psychological, social and political conditions we found ourselves in during an era of global lockdowns.
By interpreting the same score in different contexts, Decameronistas mapped their localities, and exchanged their experience of making work in differing states of lockdown, restrictive policy measures and economic constraints. The emergent work, and the emergent colleagueship and friendship, sustained the group. The weekly conversations connected and mapped different perspectives. They helped us to explore the role of art in finding resource in the present moment and in imagined futures. The result was the co-production of new knowledge about the nature of living through multidimensional crises.
The DECAMERON-19 meetings have been full of
laughter, and febrile, furtive, provocative exchange,
leavened with a sense of underlying pathos at the
state we found ourselves in, and the precarity of
individuals’ situations at different times and places.
Like Boccaccio’s novel, the emerging work provides a
document of sorts of life at this time.
His was written in the vernacular of the Florentine language. Our account is written in the individual poetic visions, ritual inventions, weird fictions, unexpected narratives and humorous political critiques of makers, artists, musicians and others, employing their creativity in these transdisciplinary conversations.
As we now enter a new a phase of pandemic, and ever stricter measures to curb the rapid spread of an invisible contagion, we don’t see an obvious end to DECAMERON-19. Reaching 100 stories is our next milestone...
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Expanding network: Anja Dimitrijevic; Laura Santini; Mathieu Tremblin, Cynthia Montier; Peter McCaughey; Sharmila Samant; Igor Ponosov; Zara Joan Miller; @xcrswx (Crystabel Riley & Seymour Wright); Robert Luzar; Deana Kolencíková; Thomas Lasbouygues; Ben Parry; Lia Mazzari; Epos 257; Encastrable; Jonathan Naas; Arzhel Prioul; Marianne Villière; Aïda Gomez; Vladimír Turner; Billy Steiger
Concept and curation: Lia Mazzari & Ben Parry
His was written in the vernacular of the Florentine language. Our account is written in the individual poetic visions, ritual inventions, weird fictions, unexpected narratives and humorous political critiques of makers, artists, musicians and others, employing their creativity in these transdisciplinary conversations.
As we now enter a new a phase of pandemic, and ever stricter measures to curb the rapid spread of an invisible contagion, we don’t see an obvious end to DECAMERON-19. Reaching 100 stories is our next milestone...
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Expanding network: Anja Dimitrijevic; Laura Santini; Mathieu Tremblin, Cynthia Montier; Peter McCaughey; Sharmila Samant; Igor Ponosov; Zara Joan Miller; @xcrswx (Crystabel Riley & Seymour Wright); Robert Luzar; Deana Kolencíková; Thomas Lasbouygues; Ben Parry; Lia Mazzari; Epos 257; Encastrable; Jonathan Naas; Arzhel Prioul; Marianne Villière; Aïda Gomez; Vladimír Turner; Billy Steiger
Concept and curation: Lia Mazzari & Ben Parry
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Watch the film here
