Sergi Casero Nieto

Sergi Casero works at the intersection of design, performance and research. His work explores the use of performance art as a tool with which to represent research, paying special attention to the design of scenographic devices. By exploring counter-narratives such as oral testimonies or collective memory, his work brings historical information physically alive. His work challenges hegemonic narratives and presents the past through a multitude of perspectives.

Throughout this residency, which is part of a collaboration with Live Works.  Free School of Performance (Dro, Italy), Sergi Casero Nieto will work on a performance art piece, “The Pact of Forgetting”, in which the artist “investigates the historical silence in Spain, its intergenerational transmission and its effects on those born after the dictatorship. Immaterial elements, such as light and sound, evoke the memories of the protagonists, including the author’s own grandmother, who lived through the Civil War, the post-war period and the dictatorship.

Through an autofictional narrative that combines personal experiences, accounts, and documents collected during the research, the performance art piece defends the importance of collecting different perspectives through memory and oral history, exposing the pitfalls of collective silence and questioning the “official” narratives of history.

The 1977 Amnesty Law, also known as the “Pact of Forgetting”, passed after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco, currently precludes any judicial investigation into the crimes committed during his 40-year dictatorship. This institutionalised amnesia continues to have consequences for Spanish society in that it creates a gap in our national history and upholds the prevalence and supremacy of the victors’ narrative. How do we relate to the past? Who tells it, how do we tell it, what language do we use to describe what happened?”.

 With the collaboration of: Live Works. Free School of Performance (Dro, Italy)