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For Beauty and terror: sites of colonialism and fascism, the artists Sara Bushra and Dawit Seto conceived ከገፅታው በስተጀርባ; Look Here, a performance piece speaking around a form of violence captured in/as a series of photographs.
The work circumambulates the story of sixty Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Somali nationals brought to Naples to construct and then be living ‘exhibits’ in the ‘indigenous villages’ at the Mostra d’Oltremare.
The making of ከገፅታው በስተጀርባ; Look Here follows the Movement Vocab methodology, a practice that looks at imprints of embodied gestures, as fractals in the language of traditional dances in Ethiopia. The artists chose five photos from the series of archival images to look at ‘gestures’ that can serve as entry ways to begin the encounter with the history of the photographs.
Composed of hesitant movements and stammering words, ከገፅታው በስተጀርባ; Look Here’s choreography attempts to activate channels of empathy by suggesting forms of violence palpable in these photographs in visceral and somatic modes.