Ciacco

"In Canto VI of The Inferno, soon after they have started their descent into Hell, Dante and Virgil find themselves in the third circle where gluttonous people, those who could not control their appetite in life, are confined. As a punishment, these sinners are lashed by incessant rain «cursed, cold and burdensome», mixed with hail and snow, and are tormented by Cerberus, the «mighty worm», a monstrous three-headed dog producing deafening barks.[...] The work Ciacco (2021) by Valentina Furian1 originates precisely from this passage of Dante’s Commedia, characterized by vivid sensory descriptions. Immersed in half darkness, the audience is exposed to sounds that are equally fascinating and repulsive: growls, whines, and barks assault the viewer relentlessly. On the screen, multiform and elusive images alternate, wavering between reality and representation, narrative of the present and atemporal evolutions, and imagination and perception. A disquieting presence progressively emerges out of a blurred dimension, while in the background a sound like rain can be heard. The unusual feral beast might be Cerberus, tormenting «the people that are there submerged» like a dog, while the «rain» is the endless dripping, torturing the depraved people relegated in etèrnum, forever, to Dante’s third circle: that of the gluttons, such as Ciacco himself.[...]" Text by Giada Centazzo