A little dust

After five weeks of residency in the Vulture-Melfese area, Lucas Cornejo Pasara (Peru), Nazira Karimi
(Kazakhstan), Nona Inescu (Romania) and Niccolò Masini (Italy) share with the public the projects developed in
dialogue with the landscape, the archaeological heritage and the historical stratifications of the territory, through
installations, screenings and site-specific interventions.
The day opens at 11:00 AM in the Cisterns of Melfi Castle with What Returns in the Current by Nazira Karimi, a
film that follows the Ofanto from the sea to its springs and looks at the river as a body that is not only natural but
also geopolitical and mythical: a border, a memory and a story that flows, settles and returns. With the voice of
singer Titta Schirò and the participation of students from the Liceo Artistico “Festa Campanile” in Melfi. The
programme continues in Venosa from 6:00 PM with a walking route through three venues in the town. At the
Convent of Madonna delle Grazie, Nona Inescu presents She Who Smokes in the Middle: following in the
footsteps of the renowned archaeologist Dinu Adameșteanu, the artist reached the sanctuary of the goddess Mefitis,
the Italic deity of sulphurous vapours, fever and healing, and evokes her presence through a column of vapour rising
from the convent’s well. At 6:45 PM, at the former Elderly Centre, Lucas Cornejo Pasara presents Lazzaretto, a
work of fiction that imagines the rediscovery of a young nineteenth-century naturalist’s research into the microbial
life of Venosa’s ruins: slides, drawings, archaeological sections and sculptures compose an archaeology of
contamination. At 7:30 PM, in the Courtyard of Venosa Castle, Niccolò Masini presents Pulvis et umbra, a
tombstone that rehumanises an archaeological find: the femur fragment of the Homo heidelbergensis of
Notarchirico, to which the work gives a burial. A body that lived before empires and borders thus becomes a measure
for questioning today’s freedom of movement. The videos by Nona Inescu and Nazira Karimi will also be screened on
loop in the conference room of the National Archaeological Museum “Mario Torelli” in Venosa Castle, which will
exceptionally remain open until midnight.