Grandmother Tongue
“What is the point in saving a word, if the thing it describes doesn't exist anymore?”
Web archive and performance about the rage of seeing your language die out.
I spent the last months recording video interviews, where I ask: if your language died tomorrow, and you get to keep one word with you, what word would it be?
With the answers, I started a web-archive, in which each of the 6k languages, from English toWest-Flemish, is represented by 1 living testimony. At the Digital on Stage residency, in Maribor, I created a prototype of it.
The B-Side of this archive, is a theatre performance, in which I connect the interveiws and testimonies with my own relationship with Emiliano and its cultural heritage. Working with the performer Elena Orsini and video maker Nicola Carri, I presented a preview of the performance at Teatro Nuovo (Pisa), where the project was awarded with a residency in 2026, at Teatro Nuovo delle Commedie in Livorno.