Archival Resonance
(2024)
author(s): Marco Dell' Abate
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
The thesis deals with the theme of cultural loss in Salento (South-East of Italy) by investigating 4 different
contexts where loss is happening, and how elements of cultural heritage translate and degrade
into the contemporary age:
• Language, with an investigation of the ancient Grìko language, a tongue of lower Salento, in state of disappearing
• The Olive Tree, once a cornerstone of Salentinian agrarian tradition, now subjected
to a rapid decay due to the Xylella bacteria, and the political/social inability to deal with
the problem
• Dry-stone walls, a practice in process of being forgotten. This theme is used as
a gateway to talk about embodied cognition, and the impossibility to translate a
whole culture in a digital context
• Taranta, once a practice of emotional re/expression, now disappeared in its entire-
ty as a ritual and only existing as a memory
