Nuovo Habitat | Mara Oscar Cassiani

Nuovo Habitat (2021) by Mara Oscar Cassiani takes inspiration from recent archaeological discoveries that are helping to renew and reinvigorate the study of matrilineality in the ancient world. Through DNA tests it was understood that what for a long time had been considered the remains of a Viking warrior in the ancient city of Birka in Sweden, or of a famous hunter from Peru of 9000 years ago, actually belong to female warriors of high rank. In fact, there are numerous cases of erroneous attribution of archaeological finds, based not on science and therefore on DNA analysis but on Western gender stereotypes applied to different cultures.

Nuovo Habitat by Cassiani is in fact a place where these warrior women are recognized and validated in their nature: the project is composed of a site specific installation and a performance preceded by a workshop in physical and spiritual preparation for people who identify themselves with the female or fluid gender.
The female warriors participate in a rite, a codified liturgy of gestures and words punctuated by an electric and profound sound.
Female soldiers, hunters, avatars appropriate the space free to define their own identity, as opposed to gender stereotypes that see them as weak, fragile and unable to defend themselves, in a new space free from patriarchal eyes, open for new alliances between the bodies.
Mara Oscar Cassiani, Nuovo Habitat, for Careof, Milan 2021.
performance/site specific installation, mixed technique, motivational and body training workshop, Milan 2021
With the support of Careof Milano
©Photo Celine Volonteiro, courtesy the artist and Careof Milano;
performing act in photo: Mara Oscar Cassiani and Barbara Tedeschi

14/01/2021