Dive inTO the dark

Performance Series

Video by muSa michelle mattiuzzi

Innsbrück, Austria, 2025

Dive into the Dark, Performance Series, is the activation of the Abolition Garden. It's a site-specific performance. I've done it in various formats until I found the right space for the action. I activate a cube-shaped space filled with black earth, charcoal, dried flowers, and herbs. Dressed in white, I move slowly, allowing my body to interact with the elements through breath and improvisation. My clothing absorbs the earth and charcoal, becoming a kind of canvas for memory. As I grind the charcoal with my hands until it turns to powder, I embody labor, ritual, and resistance. Guided by a soundscape featuring Big Sun by Chassol and Truth by Kamasi Washington, the performance becomes a refusal of linear time — a descent into matter, presence, and remembrance.

Photo: © ElaBialkowska OKNO studio, Dive into the dark Performance Series, Open Studio in Villa Romana Prize, Florence, Italy 2021

“Unless, alternatively, we suspend the laws of logic for a moment and consider the possibility that Dana’s journey is not spatiotemporal, but material...”
— IN Unpayable Debt Book, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Chapter 2 - "the most perfect hallucination", page 160.

I let the materials speak.

I let the body remember.

I let time bend.