Performance as necrowriting : necropolitics, resonances and artistic research in the haunted Mediterranean – a Sardinian genealogy

Zedda, Maria Paola (author), Zajec, Urška (resume translator)

This article reflects on performance artistic research as a critical tool for investigating the contemporary Mediterranean from a situated perspective in Sardinia, understood both as a geographical territory and as an epistemic field in dialogue with the Global South. Through the lenses of necropolitics, neomaterialism, transcorporeality and performance epistemology, the article examines how artistic practices can activate relational, affective and critical forms of knowledge in territories marked by extractivism, ecological violence, militarisation, depopulation and erased histories. Following a genealogical trajectory that begins with Maria Lai’s Legarsi alla montagna, the article analyses CAMPOSUD and Andreco’s Parade for the River Tirso, Valentina Medda’s The Last Lamentation and Nicola Di Croce’s Attuning to / Resonating with (Sulcis). These case studies are read as practices that move beyond site-specificity toward forms of attunement, listening, participation and intra-action with territories, waters, ghosts and more-than-human agencies. The author argues that, in the haunted Mediterranean, performance does not simply represent necropolitical landscapes but produces conditions through which the dead, the silenced, the nonhuman and the contaminated may become perceptible, opening towards what she calls epistemic disarmament.

• Language: English
• Keywords: performance epistemology, Haunted Mediterranean, attunement, necropolitics, Maria Lai, transcorporeality, necrochoreographies, artistic research
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: AGRFT - Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 130-154
• Numbering: Letn. 14, št. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-188388
• UDC: 792.01:793.3:502
• ISSN on article: 1855-4539
• DOI: 10.51937/Amfiteater-2026-1/130-154
• COBISS.SI-ID: 288576771
• Publication date in RUL: 22.09.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Amfiteater : revija za teorijo scenskih umetnosti
• Publisher: Akademija za gledališče, radio, film in televizijo, Društvo gledaliških kritikov in teatrologov Slovenije, Akademija za gledališče, radio, film in televizijo, Društvo gledaliških kritikov in teatrologov Slovenije, Akademija za gledališče, radio, film in televizijo, Slovenski gledališki inštitut, Slovenski gledališki inštitut, = Slovenian Theatre Institute, Založba Univerze v Ljubljani, = University of Ljubljana Press
• ISSN: 1855-4539
• COBISS.SI-ID: 239685632

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Performans kot nekropisava

Abstract

V članku obravnavamo performativno umetniško raziskovanje kot kritično orodje za proučevanje sodobnega Sredozemlja, in sicer z vidika Sardinije; slednjo hkrati razumemo kot geografsko ozemlje in epistemološko polje v dialogu z globalnim jugom. Skozi prizmo nekropolitike, neomaterializma, transkorporealnosti in epistemologije uprizarjanja proučujemo, kako z umetniškimi praksami aktivirati relacijske, afektivne in kritične oblike vednosti na ozemljih, ki nosijo pečat ekstraktivizma, ekološkega nasilja, militarizacije, odseljevanja in izbrisanih zgodovin. Genealoško gledano, se članek začne z delom Legarsi alla montagna (Maria Lai); na tej podlagi analizira dela CAMPOSUD, Parade for the River Tirso (Andreco), The Last Lamentation (Valentina Medda) ter Attuning to / Resonating with (Sulcis) (Nicola Di Croce). Navedene študije primerov beremo kot prakse, ki jih zaznamuje odmik od lokacijske specifičnosti (angl. site specificity – op. prev.) k oblikam uglašenosti (angl. attunement – op. prev.), poslušanja, participacije in intra-akcije z ozemlji, vodami, prikaznimi in več-kot-človeškim. Avtorica trdi, da v Sredozemlju prikazni performans ne reprezentira le nekropolitičnih pokrajin, temveč ustvarja pogoje, v katerih lahko tisti, ki so mrtvi, utišani, nečloveški in kontaminirani, sploh postanejo vidni – s čimer se odpira za to, kar sama imenuje epistemološko razoroževanje.

• Keywords: epistemologija uprizarjanja, Sredozemlje prikazni, uglašenost, nekropolotika, Maria Lai, transkorporealnost, nekrokoreografije, umetniško raziskovanje