2024
Textile and sound installation (latex, threads, yarns, bone transducers, bass shaker)
"What if we had danced?" stitches between family dynamics within mental distress, care, healing and the traditional Southern Italian phenomenon known as tarantism.
It is a reflection on the emotional weight I carried while growing up in a family that struggled with mental distress. I ponder whether there could have been tools available for me to deal with these challenges and to cope with my emotional exhaustion.
As both a daughter and a sister, as a child who grew up facing parental loss and episodes that involved depression, anxiety and at destructive be-haviours, I have taken upon my shoulder the responsibility of upholding the tamilial bond. Nevertheless, I got stuck many times with a sense of helplessness. As it my efforts had been swept under a carpet.
Being far away made me reflect on our heritage. While growing up I heard many stories, traditions and music about Southern Italy, but what really stuck with me was tarantism.
In Salento, up to the last century, tarantism was widespread as a histori-cal, cultural and religious phenomenon. It predominantly involved the rural world. The term refers to both illness and ritual. It was believed that the bite of a spider, the tarantula, would lead to a state of mental distress. The treatment consisted of a ritual involving choreutic, musical and chromatic elements.
Rituals are an opportunity to reflect on the disjuncture between what is and what should be; they are a "focusing lens" through which people can attempt to see what is significant in real life (Bell, 2009). In this case, we shed light on the state of subordination that afflicted women, aggravated by poverty, harvest fatigue, the entrenched patriarchal structure and the socio-eco-nomic disparities between the North and the South.
The interpretation I'm proposing shifts away from the traditional imagery of the spider as the cause of the disease, which relegates society's responsibility to the realm of symbolism and mysticism, by absolving society of accountability and searching for blame elsewhere. On the contrary, if we shift perspective and acknowledge the spider as the catalyst, we also overturn the system of values: we confront the lack of care and healing in the reality that the sufferers inhabit and societal responsibility. In my installation, the spider narrates its story, urging us to get closer and listen. She, the spider, knows how important she is and remains perplexed by human behaviour. A speaker embedded in latex conveys this story, and by creating a sort of halo around it, I reflect on how the spider and the patronsaint were often conflated in the ritual.