“Il Signore delle Camelie”

Duration: 3 hours, 2002

Performed: September 14^th, 2002
Exhibition: Transart, Franzensfeste, Fortezza, Italy
Curator: Marina Abramovic

I was given a space which used to be a cannon chamber during the war. My idea was to fight against the cold room and memories it beholds, so I thought to fill it up with Camelia petals... and inspired myself by George Cuckor’s movie: “The Camelia mistress”, starring Greta Garbo in the main role. This time there is a mister and is sitting in the empty room, surrounded by white Camelia petals... I am looking at my own image, projected in frontof me, during the entire duration of the performance (two hours)... A sound installation echoes in the room the whole time... It is my voice, whispering in five different languages sentences of rimorse, anger... Trying to clean myown self up from inside... Testifying some of my deepest fears and thoughts in this space which opens to the public as a sort of forgotten territory, where the smell of gun powder is still present...