New Scenario, 2022-2023 is a new video by Rahraw Omarzad, made during his residency at the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea. The work was filmed in the theater of the museum, within an anti-air raid shelter used by civilians during the Second World War attacks on Turin, and in a semi-abandoned parking lot.
The video shows a cast of almost ghostly characters guided by a score of slow movements and gestures within a setting formed of props, contrasting lights and an immersive, repetitive score which deepens their entrancement. Among these characters is a representative of the Taliban political and military organization; a US Army Special Forces soldier in Afghanistan; a civilian from an unspecified western country, a possible supporter and representative of the most ruthless capitalism; a businessman; a young European citizen; and a North African man in traditional Sudanese dress.
A mythological vision of the Greco-Roman tradition appears in the background: a man and two women appear wrapped in cloth to represent history which, with its events, in a perpetual repetition, reappears and cannot be erased. New Scenario offers a reflection on the circularity of human destiny and on the difficulties of liberation from the logic of trauma, wound, and conflict.
Marianna Vecellio
