Echoing Public Program continues on Saturday, February 1st, at 5:00 PM with an open-air screening by the sea of Il Mare ci ha chiamate (1978) by Lina Mangiacapre.
The event is organized with researcher and curator Sonia D'Alto, Le Nemesiache, and the Mangiacapre Archive.
Subject, screenplay, and direction: Lina Mangiacapre
Music: Nemesiache
Production: Coop. Le Tre Ghinee/Nemesiache
Duration: 18 minutes
Year: 1978
SYNOPSIS
Il Mare ci ha chiamate (1978) documents a poetic performance intervention by Le Nemesiache, an artistic and feminist group founded by artist Lina Mangiacapre in 1970, active mainly in Naples, Sorrento, and the Amalfi Coast. Held at Gaiola, in solidarity with other feminist groups of the time, the performance draws on ancestral, dreamlike, and mythological femininity, denouncing the land's suffering, devastated by the agony of a polluted and desecrated sea due to human actions.
"Last night, the sea called us, and we, overcoming piles of garbage, chains of cars, stinking sewers, traffic bans, access restrictions, traffic lights, private roads, private beaches... finally reached it!
Now listen, listen to what we have to say, to what the sea has told us: as the terrible ocean crisis unfolds, a referendum must be held for all its inhabitants, the great issue must be addressed and resolved—there is a crisis of fauna and flora, the imperialism of the land is destroying the socialism of the sea! The divine earthly law is completely repressing the sea's inhabitants, who are now holding protests, strikes, and assemblies.
A group of dissenting fish has threatened to evacuate the entire seabed unless this law is repealed immediately. [...] We have decided to hold this poetry festival as a form of ritual to initiate discussions and proposals among the entire population about these serious problems, which concern us as **inhabitants of the earth and, above all, of a city born from a daughter of the sea, the siren Partenope."
CURATOR'S NOTES – Sonia D'Alto
In June 1978, Le Nemesiache, dressed in poetry garments, walked down to Gaiola to celebrate the Festival of Poetry, aiming to express "the desire to live, to breathe, to feel beautiful, young, full of energy, like the sea, in harmony with nature, and to make June 11th the Women's Poetry Day."
During a Sunday walk organized along the Posillipo coast, the Neapolitan feminist group Le Nemesiache stormed the beach alongside the Creativity Group and the women of MBP.
A spontaneous procession formed as they descended towards Gaiola, following Nemesi playing the flute. The Nemesiache, playing drums and wearing long robes adorned with gold and silver poems, caught the attention of women, young men, and children. All were enchanted by the music of the instruments that accompanied their verses:
"[...] Let us invent a new, sincere, and personal way to reclaim the world's streets, to participate more authentically in the festival of nature calling us.
Intervention at Gaiola, intervention for the sea, for our sea. A different relationship with the land: no longer use, exploitation, or ownership. The relationship with the land, with roots, with culture, must be like the relationship with one's own body, imagination, physicality, and history. Reclaiming the land means seeing its destruction, pollution, and appropriation as the same destiny imposed on women. To rediscover traces, submerged continents, the sea as mother, poetry, not just nature, no longer a scientific concept that justifies exploitation, as women are reduced to mere nature for the same purpose. The sea as culture, cosmos, a realm to reclaim."
The Nemesiache articulated critical discourses and political imagination through environmental interventions to reclaim the sea and the land, raise awareness of neglected or degraded areas, and reflect on the violence inflicted on and by exploiting the territory. By staging alternative temporalities and mythologies, they sought to restore the spiritual and physical nature of the land and landscape, moving beyond modern patriarchal paradigms of abstraction, objectivity, and separation, instilling new forms of solidarity that blended feminism and ecology within a cosmic timeframe.
Lina Mangiacapre on the Film:
“Struggle, politics, fantasy, madness, expression. I made this film, disconnected moments linked within my psyche, the poetry intervention at Gaiola, my love for the sea, women, the Nemesiache, and beauty. A dream within the insomnia of a reality that distorts beauty... I dig, penetrate with my eyes through prohibitions and devastation within my expropriated land. I play with the sadness of a fragility shaped by infinite and shifting interests: spaces for me, spaces for the others."
Practical Information
Free Event – Reservation Recommended: Click here to register
Date & Time: Saturday, February 1st, 2025 – 5:00 PM (Arrive by 4:45 PM)
Weather permitting, the event will take place outdoors under the portico of Ristorante Galamaris Marina di Praia. What to Bring: A cushion or chair for seating. A blanket, if needed
For more information, call +39 350 047 0811 or email info@mareartproject.com.
The Echoing Public Program is a series of free events connected to the Echoing artist residency, a project by Marea Art Project funded by the European Union and implemented by the Goethe-Institut.
