valentina medda

The Last Lamentation -the project

The Last Lamentation is an art project articulated around the issue of migration and diasporas from the Global South that sees the Mediterranean transformed into a place of waiting, suspension and passing away, the embodiment of an absence -repository of corpses, and corpse per sé.

The work recounts the tragedy of the sea through a hypnotic vocal and choreographic score that reworks ritual codes into contemporary, abstract forms. The powerful presence of 12 weeping women, dressed in black and standing by the Sea, makes by contrast the absence of the dead more tangible, causing their silenced voices to explode. Simple gestures and sounds connect the lament from Sardinia -the artist’s homeland and the simbolical junction between the North and the South of the world- with that of the countries bordering the Mediterranean, resulting in a shared weeping that recounts the tragedies of the sea. The bodies punctuate the landscape like shadows and dark presences, building a calligraphic mark that recalls the flight of a flock. The score of gestures uses the codes of dance hybridized with signs from archaeological and ethnographic heritage, according to a path of repetition and crescendo that, in a loop that is never identical, aims to find a moment of climax and cure.

Looking at the sea from a postfeminist perspective, and in line with the artist previous works, the work also questions the nature of the body and its boundaries, suggesting the possibility of new liquid bodies, aquatic creatures, embodied geographies, fluid epistemologies.

Curated by Maria Paola Zedda within the frame of the Italian Council, the project consists of both a video and a live performance.

The Last Lamentation | Film

The film, which was shot in Sardinia in October 2024, premiered on February 2024 as a video installation in the catacombs hall of Bologna's  monumental cemetery Certosa -a unesco heritage site- within the context of the Bologna Art Fairduring Art City, within the context of Bologna Art Fair.

The Last Lamentation | Performance

The performance was first presented as a study in Cagliari, atop of a promontory facing South, where 14 local non professional performers' voices overlaid, underlined, and merged with the wind, the waves, the rustle of the bush, the subdued whistle of the military radar, the passing-by planes, the birds, the distant cries from the beach. A second study of the project was performed in Ljubljana, in front of the River, bringing up memories of past deaths and their ghosts; resonating louder with the recent flood that devastated Slovenia, and giving us the opportunity to pay homage to those deaths, too. The river’s water, with its ever changing flow that looks always the same, reminded us of how -how often and how repetitively- this tragedy is happening, again and again and again. Always the same and always different. In Ljubljana, three mourners from Sardinia joined the ones from Slovenia, allowing us to connect different geographies and wave together their traditions through their singing. Both these iterations of the project were realized in collaboration with sound artist and composer Alessandro Olla and vocal coach and composer Claudia Ciceroni.

Final performance premiered on April 2024 at Supernova Festival, Rimini (IT). The project wass realized in collaboration with sound artist and composer Gaspare Sammartano.

The Last Lamentation  was precedeed by a first study, ashort video named S’Ultimu Attittu -Sardinian for the last lamentation- that was realized in Beirut in 2018 (see dedicated page).

Winner of the XI edition of Italian Council - program for the international promotion of Italian art of the General Directorate of Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture - and of the European project Stronger Peripheries, The Last Lamentation is made possible by a partnership linking  ZEIT (lead partner), Museo MAN of Nuoro, Teatro di Sardegna, Arts Centre 404 /VierNulVier (Ghent, BE), Flux Factory (NYC), and it will be realised with the collaboration of Fondazione Sardegna Film Commission, and the support of ARS Arte Condivisa in Sardegna from the  Fondazione di Sardegna (sponsor of the project).

Acquired by MAMbo -Museum of Contemporary Art of Bologna, where the artist lives, the piece will première in June in Sardinia, where it is now being produced and rehearsed and where it’ll see the live contribution of music composer Alessandro Olla. It’ll than travel to Arts Centre 404 / VierNulVier, Bunker di Ljubljana, FluxFactory -NYC, and will be presented in Milan thanks to the cultural partnership of Careof, in Bari at the BIG Bari International Gender Festival, in Puglia at RAMDOM, in Cagliari at Sa Manifattura and Exmà.