ON RELIEFS OF A TIME
‘NOS MARCHÁBAMOS, REGRESABÁMOS SIEMPRE’ (MEXICO PAVILION - BIENNALE DI VENEZIA 2024)
In 2019, the Doda family gathered around a table in the Italian countryside. Having migrated to Italy from Albania over thirty years earlier, they had integrated into Italian life without losing their cultural ties and traditions, forming a new identity: that of the foreigner. This identity bears the inherent pain of loss and a continuous, irremediable return to the memory of what can never be again.
From this record and an ongoing dialogue between Erick Meyenberg and Gentian Doda, this installation emerged four years later. At the centre of the Mexican Pavilion we find a table, framed by pairs of corner screens showing the family gathered around another table. The setting poetically evokes the displacement of the migrant and, at the same time, the choreographic intervention “On reliefs of a time…” universalises the existential condition of humans as foreigners in their own lives.
“This project stems from something very personal; it's the story of my family. But the task was to turn the personal into something more universal.
‘On Reliefs of a Time…’ was there to evoke images and sensations in the minds of the spectators through a careful composition of movements, textures, symbols and dynamics. Instead of guiding them through a predefined storyline, the performance invited them to explore the space alongside the performers, allowing them to roam freely into an immersive and indescribable experience. While encouraging them to open up to unexpected imaginings and transcend what can logically be explained.”
Gentian Doda
Artistic collaboration, Choreography & Sound design: Gentian Doda
Performers: Rosella Pellicciotti, Fjorald Doci, Julien Klopfenstein
Costume design: Ardi Asllani
Choreographic intervention by: ‘was bleibt kollektiv | Gentian Doda’
Mexico Pavilion, 60. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte
Biennale di Venezia 2024
Artist: Erick Meyenberg
Curator: Tania Ragasol