Installations
From the 8th of September to the 24th of November, Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana presented a comprehensive programme featuring installations, archives and performances by the participants of the edition.
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Liquid Transfers
- TypeInstallation
- ParticipantDiana Policarpo
- VenueMonastery of Sant Cugat
Liquid Transfers, 2022-2024 © Diana Policarpo. Photo © Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana / Helena Roig
In Liquid Transfers, Diana Policarpo merges a documentary style with a speculative fictional plot on the economic, social and political uses of ergot – a group of fungi that grows on wheat and has caused multiple mass poisoning events from the Middle Ages to the modern era. One of the most recent of these events occurred in 1951 in the French city Pont-Saint-Esprit; colloquially known as the ‘case of the cursed bread’, this event saw 500 people suffer psychotic episodes, hallucinations and convulsions. Across history, healers and midwives have used ergot (in small doses) in various procedures, including to carry out abortions and ease labour pains. Alas, the modern medical industry – dominated by patriarchal prejudices – has mocked (female) healers and midwives who have continued using traditional remedies like ergot despite contemporary pharmaceutical ‘advances’. Notwithstanding the above, doctors and scientists, notably those serving the military-industrial complex, have taken an interest in ergot’s psychological effects.Liquid Transfers thus considers the controversial theory that the 'cursed bread' incident was not an accidental poisoning, but a deliberate act stemming from a covert experimental military program.
2022-24
Three-channel HD video, quadraphonic sound, 12’26’’
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann + Silva Gallery, Porto
Commissioned by Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
Supported by Artissima, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, illy and the Directorate-General for the Arts of the Ministry of Culture of Portugal
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