Okužba. Poročilo o kugi - Contagion. Report on the Plague

2025, Participatory Performance, Goriški Muzej, Kromberk Castle, Nova Gorica, Slovenia

The earth deforms its womb to accommodate inert relics, while the march continues, disciplined, around a vegetable carcass. The admission of collective guilt. A taste of the future is preserved in the sound of a concentric procession around a dead tree, with its roots exposed as veins cut out. The family tree, decomposed in mud, torn apart by gravity and oblivion, recites its silent missa. The Missa Contra Pestem rises in the dense air, an echo of ashes and sins. In this pedantic march we felt a force without purpose to feast, an occult voice to maneuver us in the turbulent trail left by the passage of a dying horse.

The image

The report on the contagion manifests itself in the relationship between the participants and the fear triggered by the events of the plague. In the outdoor spaces of Kromberk Castle, a voice guides visitors, drawing and giving shape to the Gorizia plague of 1682. Starting from historical documents, the ghostly narrative crosses the present to evoke remote sensations. Stories, rituals and procedures that are transformed into situations experienced by the visitors themselves. The stories and drawings of Giovanni Maria Marusig's Plague Diary are elaborated in five micro-stories set in the corners of the park adjacent to Kromberk Castle. An uprooted tree, a brazier, a theater are the places where the settings come to life. This invisible bacterium challenges institutions and pushes society to reorganize, creating a tension between fear and the need to adapt. The events of the plague allow us to investigate the fear of the other, a fear that is deeply rooted in uncertainty and the unknown. The plague, like all large epidemics, has always generated a sense of extraneousness and distrust towards those who could be carriers of contagion. The other is the embodiment of an invisible and uncontrollable threat, a threat that can redesign the rules of coexistence of a community.

The research

Among the external spaces of Kronberk Castle we are accompanied by a voice that draws and manifests events of the Gorizia plague of 1682. Starting from historical documents, the ghostly narrative passes through the present to evoke remote sensations. What appears to be a guided tour becomes a reenactment, through the stories, rituals and procedures are transformed into events and situations generated by the spectators themselves.

Credits