Made in Ilva
THE title of this solo show used to be the proud slogan for a huge steel plant in Southern Italy. But as Nicola Pianzola puts his own body through the mill of an unrelentingly physical performance, he voices the appalling human cost of production there: injuries, illnesses, even deaths. […]
A metal frame which started off as a high stool is toppled into becoming both cage and workplace where Pianzola is no better than a slave, pounding his palms against the steel, battering the floor with it, drumming and percussing in sweat-drenched misery. Projections on the floor, dramatic lighting, music – they all add to the sense of a particular gut-wrenching situation in Ilva.
But when Pianzola elevates a welding mask, creating a shrine to industry, this blistering, savage tour-de-force could be about any community where the environment and ordinary lives are polluted by government hypocrisy and economic forces.
