The scenic project for the Euripide’s tragedy The Trojan women is an idea of a landscape rather than an architectural presence in the suggestive environment of Greek Theater of Syracuse. But the nature brought to the scene is not flourishing or picturesque, it’s the devastated and devastating power of nature to debut on the ancient stage. The message of the tragedy is as clear as evergreen: any war is destructive, useless and there’s never a winner, no matter what either side of the battle believe. The project of the Dead Forest takes the idea of universal antimilitarism to an even further level: it zooms out from the wars between men to a global relationship between human species and nature. According to the idea of the Director Muriel Mayette-Holtz, the Trojan women are among us as the refugees escaping the destruction and disaster in their homelands in search of a better luck overseas. They are the victims of the terroristic attacks, confused and disoriented. But they are also millions of fir trees and spruces smashed down by the Vaia storm in the North-Eastern Italy, that have become witnesses and protagonists of the scenography.

What makes this project one-of-a-kind?

This scenic project has lived before (as a forest in Northern Italy), during (as a protagonist of the tragedy on stage of the Greek theater), and after the representations, as a productive material and as a new-born forest in the periphery of Syracuse. It is a confirmation that a 2000 old text can speak of the most contemporary issues in a powerful language of nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About authors

Anastasia Kucherova, Stefano Boeri

Based in Milan and with offices in Shanghai and Tirana, Stefano Boeri Architetti’s work ranges from the production of urban visions and buildings to interior and product design, constantly referring to the geopolitical and environmental implications of urban phenomena.

The focus on the relationship between city and nature in 2014 led to the creation of the Vertical Forest in Milan, first prototype of a residential sustainable building hosting more than 800 trees and 20,000 plants.

The office works on different international projects of urban forestry among which the Vertical Forests in Paris, Lausanne, Utrecht, Eindhoven and Nanjing and several models of Forest Cities all over the world.

 

FILE
Authors: Stefano Boeri Architetti; Stefano Boeri, Anastasia Kucherova
Client: Fondazione INDA (Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico)
Photographer: Tommaso Le Pera, Franca Centaro, Anastasia Kucherova
Location: Syracuse, Italy, Greek theater
Year of completion: 2019
Total area (m2): 1500

 


Text provided by the authors of the project.