Sot Glas (sot from the Friulian word for "under," and glas from the Slovenian word for "voice") is a sound and light installation that reactivates the five hundred meters of underground tunnels of Kleine Berlin in Trieste
An air raid shelter built during World War II, a defensive site, as murky as the subconscious of the collective history of the communities that have lived in this border region. A painful border, which simultaneously divides and is a point of contact and contamination with other cultures. Today, the Italian-Slovenian border reveals itself through the migrant communities that, every day by car or on foot, cross it as the last stop on the Balkan route. Sot Glas confronts and questions the notion of a political border by looking to music as a kind of trespassing and a landscape.
The sound dramaturgy reinterprets cross-border folk songs from an anti-philological perspective, ranging from songs of mi- gration and abandonment to "macaronic" chants, in two or more languages, historically never transcribed or archived since they are considered practices that circumvent the construction of national identity. An excerpt of the installation realized in Trieste is presented at the Italian Pavilion, with a sixteen-channel system that orchestrally arranges four folk songs reinterpreted by local voices. A sonic cannon - a long-range acoustic device commonly used as a means of control or to disorient migrants at sea - here plays an intimate lullaby brought to life through the voices of two members of Trieste's Pashtun community. The lullaby is sung almost sotto voce but is ever-present, asking the visitor to draw closer and disarming the very nature of the device and inverting its function.
Giuditta Vendrame
Giuditta Vendrame is an artist, designer and researcher. Through a variety of media-including spatial interventions, film, performances and installations - her practice explores and investigates citizenship, space and mobility, as well as the intersections between design, artistic practice and regulation.
Ana Shametaj
Ana Shametaj is a filmmaker and theater director. After graduating from the conservatory in piano and the Accademia Paolo Grassi in Milan, in 2013 she founded the artistic collective Kokoschka Revival, within which she is a director, designer and author.
THE SITE SPECIFIC INSTALLATION WILL BE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC IN KLEINE BERLIN, TRIESTE ON JUNE 8 – 11 FROM 5 TO 9 PM, BOOKING AT: SOTGLAS.eventbrite.it, free entrance
Practice
Giuditta Vendrame
Advisor
Ana Shametaj
Incubators
Kokoschka Revival
Alpe Adria Cinema - Trieste Film Festival
Location
Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia
In collaboration with
Casa della Musica, Club Alpinistico Triestino
Supporters
Municipality of Trieste, Embassy and Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Embassy of the Republic of Albania in Italy, Creative Industries Fund NL, INPS – Fondo PSMSAD, Fondazione Benefica Kathleen Foreman Casali, OPIFICIO NEIRAMI
Production
Kokoschka Revival
Sound Design
Renato Rinaldi
Project Manager
Irene Panzani
Voices
Anutis (Alba Nacinovich, Juliana Azevedo, Caterina De Biaggio, Laura Giavon), Piccolo Coro degli Amici led by Aglaia Merkel Bertoldi, Maryam Rashid, Ismail Swati, Stu Ledi
Light Design
Giulio Olivero
Lighting Assistant
Vitaly Weber
Technical Director
Fabio Brusadin
Scientific Consultants
Valter Colle, Marjeta Pisk (ZRC SAZU, Institute of Ethnomusicology), Luciano Santin, Lino Straulino
Acknowledgements
Associazione Linea d’Ombra ODV, Friuli-Venezia Giulia Film Commission, GO! 2025, Robida, vicino / lontano associazione culturale, Alessandro Cattunar, Gabriele Centis, Nicoletta Romeo, Donatella Ruttar, Diego Sussan, Danilo Traverso (Neirami), Francesca Colussi and a special thanks to NOTA for “Lisica ta Fasalawa” - CD “REZIJA” NOTA CD231