Residencies

• 16.10 > 04.11.2023

In La mon­tag­na è fini­ta, Brussels/​Italian play­wright Edoardo Ripani returns to his nati­ve region.

Between August 2016 and January 2017, three strong earth­qua­kes along the Apennines chan­ged the lands­ca­pe. The earth­qua­ke was the latest and most dra­ma­tic event for the regi­on in an enti­re peri­od of depres­si­on sin­ce the end of World War II. The area has beco­me one of the ​“for­got­ten pla­ces” in Italy and Europe. The fee­ling of being aban­do­ned and anger beca­me mixed the­re and fed off each other.

But this situ­a­ti­on is far from uni­que. In recent deca­des, are­as across Europe beca­me mar­gi­na­li­sed due to natu­ral disas­ters and fal­te­ring infra­struc­tu­re reco­ve­ry, depo­pu­la­ti­on, eco­no­mic cri­sis: the toll of globalisation.

“My jour­ney begins in 2016: as the earth trem­b­led in my nati­ve regi­on, my father was stric­ken with lung can­cer. The tumour was dis­co­ver­ed on 5 January 2017; he died on 1 June the same year. My father died with his belo­ved mountains.

‘La mon­tag­na è fini­ta’ will be a tour of pla­ces that tell sto­ries about their inha­bi­tants. Using this per­so­nal and local focus, I address all Europeans with a uni­ver­sal sto­ry of human and soci­al impo­ve­rish­ment, in the face of the eco­no­mic and bureau­cra­tic extrac­ti­on machine.”

Edoardo Ripani