Vaga
Performance
With Luisa Pisetta Ravanelli
2020
A seemingly trivial question, yet one capable of sparking unexpected conversations and surfacing forgotten memories. This performance, a collaboration between Chiara Duchi and Luisa Pisetta Ravanelli, sought to disrupt the usual social fabric of a crowded Saturday night square, where individuals, though immersed in chaos, often remain tethered to familiar social groups and norms.
The intervention began with a simple act: handing one end of a long, pink rope to a person and the other end to someone else, positioned at a distant point in the square. These two strangers, now physically linked, were challenged to follow the rope to meet one another. Upon encountering each other, they were prompted to ask: “When was the last time you ate popcorn?”
This playful disruption of the space's social geography reconfigured the crowd's dynamics: the square, typically a site of predictable interactions among university students, locals, and visitors, was temporarily transformed. The performance dissolved pre-existing boundaries and encouraged spontaneous connections, fostering new and unpredictable relationships between individuals who might otherwise never have crossed paths.
Through this simple yet profound gesture, the work invited participants to step out of their social comfort zones, creating a shared experience that reimagined the possibilities of public space and collective interaction.