Acrylic and vinyl paint on old magic lantern plates, super 8 loop projection (3 minutes), photographs, old file cabinet, paper documentation
Created for the exhibition Here We Are – The Place Is Always Specific at the PAC – Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Ferrara, the work engages with the territory and history of Ferrara. Urban legend is employed as a tool to examine the transmission of culture from institutional or “high” culture—embodied by the museum—to the sphere of local and popular culture.
Presented as an investigation into urban legends and ghost stories surrounding a former psychiatric hospital for children in Aguscello, a village in the province of Ferrara, the work draws on the site’s reputation among “ghost hunters” and the numerous horror-themed legends it has inspired. While based on genuine research and historical documentation spanning two centuries, the report distributed during the exhibition—available to visitors as printed material—includes fabricated elements. A newly invented urban legend and several fictional historical facts were inserted to test whether these would migrate from the institutional context into the broader popular domain, including online communities and websites dedicated to the paranormal.
The installation includes a set of 20 antique magic lantern slides, a medium historically associated with the narration of folk tales and supernatural stories. These were used to construct an imaginary magic lantern projection, where each image would be accompanied by a narrator’s spoken commentary. Most slides were restored and repainted, replacing their original scenes with newly created ones, while a few were left untouched to preserve their period character.
Also included is a short Super 8 film, shot inside the former psychiatric hospital, and a filing cabinet containing 60 photographs taken on 6x6 and 35mm film. Some of the images feature “orbs”—light anomalies commonly interpreted by ghost hunters as signs of spiritual presence.
The title of the work references the French term Phantasmagoria, historically used to describe early multimedia performances combining projected images, storytelling, and illusion.
