as if asleep…

art residency & film, Pompeii

Concept Ioana Marinescu

Film Laurențiu Calciu, Ioana Marinescu

Choreographers / performers Smaranda Găbudeanu, Iulia Mărăcine

The mould is the imprint of an object on a surface, a negative of form, palpable memory. To the ancient Greeks, memory was the imprint on the soul of a past event. During the 19th century archaeological excavations in Pompeii, plaster was poured into the holes created by the organic matter decomposed under the hardened ash and lava, revealing nearly one hundred almost exact reproductions of the bodies of men, women, children, and animals, trapped as if in an eternal sleep. Referencing the plaster casts, the performers' bodies negotiate time, from the geological time of Pompeii to the fast, indifferent rhythms of the present.

Concept initially developed by Ioana Marinescu during a residency in the pandemic (2021) at Beaconsfield, London, in collaboration with Hana Gillgren.