JOHN DI STEFANO
FORO/FOSSE [2015]
Mixed media installation: Four-channel digital video projection - 00:22:00 looped - colour - 4:3 | Six-channel audio | Other materials: plywood | installation dimensions: variable
VIEW: https://vimeo.com/145028846
FORO/FOSSE is a video (four-channel) and audio (six-channel) installation that juxtaposes footage shot at two historical sites in Rome, Italy:
The first, the Foro Italico, is an extensive athletics complex built during the fascist regime as the Foro Mussolini (literally Mussolini's Forum), and inspired by the Roman forums of the imperial age. Its design is lauded as a preeminent example of Italian Fascist architecture
The second, the Fosse Ardeatine, is the site of the Ardeatine massacre, a mass killing of 330 civilians carried out in Rome on 24 March 1944 by German occupation troops as a reprisal for a partisan attack conducted against the SS Police
The historical events that defined these two sites have long since passed, and only a lingering murmur exists of them in the contemporary world. The installation documents the act of walking through these historical sites, focusing on the direct and experiential engagement of moving through these spaces as a means of potentially reanimating their political and ideological significance today
This installation is related to the single-channel video MURMURATIONS (ROME) [2017]






