Dei corpi bianchi vagare (Of White Bodies Wandering) is a site specific project made from OD’A in occasion of Divago Festival 2019 organised by Mixta Gallery in collaboration of Pink Summer Contemporary Art. The focus was to create a connection between the street Via del Campo, its people and its history. The project takes its origin from the legend which animates Via del Campo (Genova IT): during the Holy Friday’s night this street is trodden by a hearse full of souls died of violent death. Between these souls you can see the one of Giulio Cesare Vachero, conspirator against Genova city to which the infamous column erected. Orecchie D’Asino takes this legend to create a new tail in which the myths from the past are bond together with daily impressions of the city. It takes place in different forms: two installations with various objects and media (one inside the San Marcelino church and the other in Vacchero square and the street via del Campo), two strips painted on the street to illustrate the path made by the wagon full of souls and at end a participatory action with a red stripes and passants of the street.
It’s 13:06:57. I’m still traveling inside this coach. My eyes are getting heavy again. I try to keep them open but the complaints in the background are my lullaby.
Suddenly stops. The arm where my head was laid falls and I hit the window. Dazed I look at my clock. It’s still 13:06:57. Outside the window is completely black: it seems that the train is stuck in the middle of nowhere, and the time with it.
In front of me, on the seat, a black head. Its features are delicate and I can’t understand if it is a woman or a man. I stare at it for a long time, then it coughs, showing an hidden vitality. “Sorry can you tell me what time is it?” I ask it. With its eyes it underlines the floor where I see two long red strips. I gave her a caress and I follow these signs which bring me to the exit. More i go forward more some complaints get higher.
Everything is dark, maybe is night, the only light is made by some red candles e white bodies, wandering as small fires moved by the wind.
A wicked man take me from the shoulder and whisper to me: “don’t look there, there is nothing beautiful. But this is a secret”.
Another man, with a pointy hood, has heard him and brings him away inside a fishing net.
The rocks on the wall start laughing and I feel that between their guffaws grumbling: “Infamous! Infamous! Infamous!”. A strong wind rises and it brings their voices away but at the same time obstructs my steps. I’m exhausted and I need energies: I pick some food tha ti found on the street, pecked also from pigeons. There I find a exotic fruit, green and very strange, its from reminds me a flower. While I take a better look on it, tasting also a little bit, a mimetic spider comes out and attack another insect that was biting me.
A whit strong light swarms my eyes: golden decoration draw bi-dimensional gardens, where, between savage and ancient vegetation, half-naked muses speak incomprehensible languages. I realise that my body is completely paralysed, only my pupils ripple inside my eyeball. Following the same movement a thin guy come closer to me, he has a baseball hat and a tie, between his hands a mirror rolled inside green plastic. He was searching for something. He smiles at me and whispers: “It’s 13:06:57".
Orecchie D'Asino, Dei corpi bianchi vagare, installation, San Marcellino church, Genova, 2021
During the first night of the festival, OD'A painted two strips on the street floor, from Vacca's door, where Via del Campo starts, passing from Vacchero square, up to San Marcellino church, to illustrate the path made by the wagon full of souls died a violent death.
DEI CORPI BIANCHI VAGARE DEI CORPI BIANCHI VAGARE DEI CORPI BIANCHI VAGARE DEI CORPI BIANCHI VAGARE DEI CORPI BIANCHI VAGARE DEI CORPI BIANCHI VAGARE
Orecchie D'Asino, Dei corpi bianchi vagare, installation, Piazza Vacchero, Genova, 2021
Last day of the festival, OD’A organized a moment of communion inside the street. Every participant, found while walking on via del Campo, wore a white coverall on which the artists painted a red line which was connecting to Vacchero's square at the ones painted on the street. The action was ended in a collective hug, showing new relations between the different ethnicities that make it special this street: an african barber, a woman passing to go to visit her aunt, the pusher, the girl studying art history. The line painted on the body of the street's inhabitants, after the big final embrace, fades as well as the prejudices that usually create boundaries and distances between social relationships. Making work in a different way the elements of the lived reality, formalizing behaviors, sociability, spaces, functions, reality acquires a transitory and precarious character, the systems weaken and the most inveterate habits take on the appearance of an exotic ritual, sometimes premonitory too.
Orecchie D'Asino, Dei corpi bianchi vagare, performance, Piazza Vacchero, Genova, 2021