Diana Pacelli

Trenta denari​

/thirty pieces of silver

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Germany, Austria, Italy, 2021

2nd of May - 10th of June

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Performative walk

40 days

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How does collective memory originate? What purposes does it serve and what processes does it use?

Inspired and based on the stories of denunciation that were cause to 2/3 of Italian Jewish deportations and countless partisans' arrests, tortures, murders during the Italian Social Republic (1943-1945), this work attempts a re-contextualisation of events that have been long extruded from the historical narration, feeding a narrative that celebrates the heroism of a popular insurrection against nazi-fascist brutality. An ideological selection that was functional to the challenges of the civil war and the subsequent reconstruction. A mantra that has long prevented Italians to come to terms with the darkest pages of their history. A social shaping which effects are still tangible in the present days and currently direct political choices.

When the generation of witnesses has almost completely passed away, it is duty of the new ones to decide what stays behind them. And this can only be done according to a vision of the future.

The future we aspire to mirrors itself in the past we preserve in the present.

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During 40 days performative walk between the former concentration camps of Buchenwald and Fossoli, wearing a mask with her features on the back of the head, this questioning has become the theoretical basis of a praxis of complexity, of a collectively performed memory enacted through and with the countless encounters.

916 km recorded

25,4 km/day average

36 locations

3 countries

4 concentration camps

17kg departure/7kg arrival

3°-32° temperature during walking

2 pairs of shoes

1500+ documentation files

too many encounters to recount

 

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