Poppaea’s Pans

2021
kinetic objects / sound installation / silk screen prints

Poppaea’s Pans is a result of an exchange with the early music ensemble Göteborg Baroque. The work is inspired by the opera L’incoronazione di Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi, significant because of the first libretto based on historical events and characters which delivers a story of love and power between the Roman emperor Nero and Sabina Poppaea.
The work on this topic is further extended by referencing a base folk practice: tepsijanje (singing along with the pan), traditionally performed exclusively by women. Focusing on this practice in the context of the patriarchal society in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Raščić explores this tradition in relation to women’s creative expression. The artist re-creates this folkloric practice as a kinetic and audio installation, which takes into account the idiophonic properties of the pans, the physics of sound in response to movement, and the site-specific acoustic character the exhibition space. Choral renditions performed by the ensemble of Göteborg Baroque create a musical accompaniment to the installation. Their voices are the ones singing with the pan, thus bringing into conversation a rural folk tradition with the highly refined art form of the opera.
For the exhibition, The more tongues you silence, the more they talk, commissioned by the Röda Sten Konsthall, this installation is shown in a symbiotic relationship with the video GORGO (2019). The two projects share a soundtrack and the collaboration relationship with sound designer Hrvoje Nikšić and coppersmith Nermina Alić.

READ CURATORIAL ESSAY BY AMILA PUZIĆ

THE MORE TONGUES YOU SILENCE, THE MORE THEY TALK

MORE ON THE COLLABORATION WITH Göteborg Baroque

Poppaes’s Pans
2021
kinetic objects and sound installation, copper, tin-plated copper, antique pans, wood, concrete, pan spinner mechanisms, speakers, 5.1 surround sound
dimensions: variable (pan dimensions d: 98 cm, d: 80, d: 60; base dimensions d:70 x h: 63)
sound design and mastering: Hrvoje Nikšić
sound recording: Hrvoje Nikšić, Per Buhre
singers: Per Buhre, Amanda Flodin, Karl Peter Eriksson
copper armor manufacturing: Nermina Beba Alić
technical solution: Modra Rijeka d.o.o. Sarajevo

Tepsijanje After Födrmayr & “Zur Akustik des ‘tepsijanje’”
2021
silk screen prints
dimensions: 50 x 70 cm

commissioned by Röda Sten Konsthall

Thank you: Carl-Henrik Andersson, Mia Christersdotter, Čaka, Maria Elena Guerra Aredal, Göteborg Baroque, Amila Puzić, Arslan Raščić, Jasmina Talam, Zlaja†