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“Ladies and Gentlemen, Here comes the Whale! Or rather, the end of the Whale’s tale...
In 24 hours, in an ex wool-spinning factory near Biella in Northern Italy, its earthly coil will be unravelled in the very place in which it was conceived. Its definitive change of form and use will be presided over and accompanied by: Vinicio Capossela, a prophet with his feet on the ground, who will set his words to song astride the Whale’s back; Antonio Marras, twine tamer, who will weave the world-weary Whale into words to be worn.
Les Funérailles de la Baleine is a short film telling the tale of the collective ritual which accompanied the final stage of the Balena Project by the artist Claudia Losi. The material stage of the project began in 2004 and came to a close in October 2010. A fin whale, 24 metres long, created entirely in fine wool fabric, air pockets and padding, was transported around Italy and abroad like an old-fashioned fairground attraction, at each stage taking on new forms of meaning, giving rise to new stories and invoking the recollection of memories. In October 2010, this ‘symbolic device’ returned to the place where the fabric of which it was made was produced, and over the course of a 24-hour performance in the rooms of the ex-textile factory, this rite of passage was carried out. A ‘funeral’ of the whale’s body, which was transformed into a variety of new objects/forms/thoughts: under the guidance of the stylist Antonio Marras, master seamsters used the fabric to create men’s jackets lined with a material printed in the form of a magazine article describing the evolution of the project. Other whale-forms were created out of the mother whale’s stuffing, as well as bags made from the inflatable air pockets inside her. As the conductor of the funeral band, the singer-songwriter Vinicio Capossela accompanied a part of the performance with as-of-then unpublished songs and readings.
Photos by Dario Lasagni
Les Funerailles de la Baleine
Directed by Daniele Signaroldi 00:39:00
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