TRIBUTE TO REMUS
#Bibliographic Office
For 21 April 2022, “Dies Romana” (the day of the birth of Rome), the exhibition Remoria presents a celebration of the phantom figure that would have formulated an “occult negative” of the Eternal City: the murdered twin, the haunting presence, the inverted tutelary deity of the entire greater suburban area – Remus, brother of Romulus.
20 April 2022, 6.30 PM
Rome is not Rome
With DOM- and Annalisa Metta
An infinite as well as eternal city, Rome covers an enormous area (about 1300 km2), making it one of the largest urban organisms in Europe. Nevertheless, its physiognomy is dominated not by the “fullness” of its neighbourhoods and settlements, but by the “emptiness” of the unbuilt, nearly always left to its own devices: big vacant lots, illegal rubbish tips, veritable explosions of the void that subvert and overturn the very meaning of the term “city”. Is it possible to interpret Rome by starting with its ghost, rather than what stands out on the surface? During the session this “urban negative” will be discussed, the identity that links back to a distant past (wreckage lost in a vacuum, ruins scattered in the countryside) and points to the future, with its omens of extinction and the progressive predominance of the non-human.
21 April 2022, 6.30 PM
The city of the living vs. the city of the dead
With Nicola Lagioia and Claudio Kulesko
Ever since the ritual murder of Remus by his twin brother Romulus, a murmur of death has hovered over the so-called Eternal City; starting from its birth which took place, legend has it, 2775 years ago, the city par excellence has populated its non-time with phantoms, spectral presences, gateways capable of connecting Overworld and Underworld, constantly overlaying the city of the living and the city of the dead. Today, the dark streets of the Roman outskirts thus become a portal ready to reveal the sulphurous essence of Remoria, the non-city stemming precisely from the ghost of Remus: chronicle spills over into necrophiliac saga, and the urban negative becomes the obscene theatre in which to pay homage to the ghost of the missing founder, whose sacrifice continues to infest the nightmares of the city of Romulus. This parallel history on the borderline between myth and hidden reality will be discussed during the session.
DOM- is a research project that began in 2013 through the collaboration between the artists Leonardo Delogu and Valerio Sirna. In the years to follow, other artists have expanded and transformed the group, depending on the project: Hélène Gautier, Mael Veisse, Arianna Lodeserto. DOM- investigates the language of the performing arts, contaminating it with the activist approach of the Environmental Humanities and the attitudes and imaginaries of eco-anarcho-queer practices. The research focuses on the relationship between bodies and territories, investigating the node of permeability and observing how power, nature, culture and marginality interact in public space.
CLAUDIO KULESKO is an independent researcher and philosopher based in Rome. Together with Gruppo di Nun, he is one of the authors of Demonologia rivoluzionaria (NERO, 2020), while with Andrea Cassini he is the author of Blackened: Frontiere del pessimismo nel XXI secolo (Aguaplano, 2021). He has translated In the Dust of This Planet (Tra le ceneri di questo pianeta, NERO, 2019) and Infinite Resignation (Rassegnazione infinita, TBA) by Eugene Thacker. His stories have appeared in Urbanomic, L’Indiscreto, Nazione Indiana, and various anthologies.
NICOLA LAGIOIA was born in Bari in 1973. He is the director of the Salone Internazionale del Libro in Turin, and hosts Pagina 3, the cultural press review of Radio Rai 3. He was first a selector and then a jury member of the Venice Film Festival. With minimum fax he has published Tre sistemi per sbarazzarsi di Tolstoj (2001), and with Einaudi Occidente per principianti (Supercoralli 2004), Riportando tutto a casa (latest edition ET Scrittori 2017; Premio Viareggio-Rèpaci, Premio Vittorini, Premio Volponi), La ferocia (Supercoralli 2014, Super ET 2016; Premio Strega 2015) and La città dei vivi (Supercoralli 2020, Premio Alessandro Leogrande, Premio Bottari Lattes, Premio Napoli).
ANNALISA METTA is an associate professor of Landscape Architecture in the Department of Architecture of Università Tre. In 2016-17 she was an Italian Fellow at the American Academy in Rome, where since 2017 she has been an Advisor in Landscape Architecture. Her research examines the interactions between theory and design of open spaces in the contemporary city, and she has presented her work in Italian and foreign universities and research institutes. In 2007 she was one of the founders of OSA architettura e paesaggio in Rome. Recent award-winning projects include the participation in the competition for the park of the Casina Sportiva of Poste Italiane in Rome (2018-21), and the project taking second place in the competition for the Parco del Ponte in Genoa (2019).