Portunalia
2014
Made in collaboration with Lisa Skuret and performed by the Dolly Mixtures.
This collaborative event marked the eve of Portunalia, a neglected festival that honours Portunas, the Roman god of doors, keys and livestock.
Over the course of an afternoon visitors to the gallery were asked to weigh any door keys they had on them, and
to offer descriptions of items recently lost or broken. This data was then processed to produce the lyrics and
pitches for the potent interludes of a specially written song of appeal to Portunas, with the hope that these items
might be restored.
You can read the lyrics of the verses of Old Portunas here.
Portunalia was part of the De Beauvoir Labs, a series of speculative and interdisciplinary attempts to revive undervalued skills through collective effort; this is in turn a strand within Lisa Skuret's Communal Materials; Or, Evolution Isn’t Fast Enough. More information here.
Photographs: Tommy Ting
