Chiara Bersani – Deserters. Opening at Kunsthaus Baselland

Deserters is a live installation by Chiara Bersani (b. 1984, San Rocco al Porto, IT) consisting of a performance interpreted by three performers with motor impairments and a large environment in which bodies meet and interact without any aid, leaving traces of their movement. Deserters addresses the issues of vulnerability and interdependence, interweaving the languages of visual art and performance, welcoming the audience into an immersive scenic environment that undermines those stereotypes related to the spheres of intimacy, identity, and sexuality that frequently affect people with disabilities.

Through this work, Chiara Bersani questions new relational practices that take into account plural prerogatives and investigates—from an aesthetic perspective rooted in proximity and relationality—the broad concept of accessibility, accounting for the political valence of disabled bodies that, after having suffered a violent increase in situations of segregation during the pandemic, here regain space through the unveiling and sharing of sonorities and chants of pleasure.

The work has been produced during the artist’s residency in Bergamo, which concluded with an evening event when the public was able to attend the final rehearsal of the performance in preparation for its premiere at the Kunsthaus Baselland, which will host Bersani’s first solo exhibition in a European institution.