Chiara Bersani’s project wins the eleventh edition of the Italian Council

Deserters, a live installation by artist Chiara Bersani, features a performance by three performers with physical disabilities and a large space in which bodies meet and act, unaided, leaving traces of their passage.

The work addresses themes of vulnerability and interdependence, welcoming audiences into an immersive stage environment that challenges stereotypes related to intimacy, identity, and sexuality that frequently affect people with disabilities.
Through this work, Chiara Bersani questions new relational practices and explores the broader concept of accessibility, exploring the political significance of disabled bodies. After experiencing a sharp increase in segregation during the pandemic, they regain space through the unveiling and sharing of sounds and songs of pleasure.

The performance’s sound component is complemented by a narrative, designed to translate the action into a non-visual dramaturgical plane. The audio description can be enjoyed simultaneously with the performers on stage, but also during their absence, by all audiences.

The title of the work draws on Virginia Woolf’s words in her essay “On Being Ill” (1926), according to which, with illness, “we cease to be soldiers in the army of the upright; we become deserters.” The artist’s invitation is, in fact, to abandon the upright position, typical of a so-called state of “health” and “conformity,” to adopt a different, shared perspective.

The artist’s residency in Bergamo concluded on September 3rd with an evening event at the Ex Oratorio di San Lupo, organized thanks to the collaboration of the Adriano Bernareggi Foundation. The audience had the opportunity to witness the final rehearsals of the performance, which will lead to its debut at the Kunsthaus Baselland in Muttenz/Basel. From October 27, 2023, to January 7, 2024, the Kunsthaus Baselland will host Chiara Bersani’s first solo exhibition in a European institution, curated by Lorenzo Giusti and Ines Goldbach.

In the Basel exhibition, the performance unfolded atop a large hand-knotted Nepalese rug, designed by the artist, who graphically elaborated the performative narrative: the intertwining of non-conforming bodies and plant shoots interacts with the performers’ actions; the long yarn fringes, placed on all sides of the rug, invade the space and invite the audience into the performing space.

The project’s promotion also includes a talk and a workshop, respectively, at the Galerie Stadtpark in Krems and at the Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan.

At the conclusion of the project, the performance score, which discusses and summarizes the actors’ training and regulates the different stage possibilities, and the environmental installation will become part of the GAMeC Collections.

Deserters is the winning project of the eleventh edition of Italian Council, the international promotion program for Italian art of the Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture.

The project is also supported by the contribution of EssilorLuxottica.