Curating Islandness. The case of Marosi Festival (Stromboli, IT)

This paper stems from the ongoing research project Performing Islandness. Performance, Dramaturgy and Curatorship of the Island since the Seventies (@Peril, 2022–2025), which investigates the island as a generative space for performative, dramaturgical, and curatorial practices. It explores how islands operate both as theoretical objects – symbolic, metaphorical – and as specific places where artistic practices are situated. By intersecting Performance Studies with Island Studies, the project seeks to develop a non-continental and decentralized account of performative practices, with particular attention to the Italian context.
The first section of this paper outlines the theoretical framework, situating recent debates within Island and Performance Studies. While earlier approaches considered islands “on their own terms” (McCall, 1994), subsequent scholarship has emphasised relational perspectives (Baldacchino, 2018; Pugh & Chandler, 2021). In this context, islands appear as epistemic paradigms: not isolated enclaves, but thresholds where ecological, cultural, and political entanglements converge. Performance Studies provide a productive lens for this paradigm, as highlighted by Schneider’s (2020) reflections on liminality and littorality.
The second section focuses on Marosi Festival (Stromboli, 2017–ongoing), a long-term initiative founded by Giulia Ferrato and directed by Anna Basti. Conceived as an experiment in “insular curatorship,” Marosi anchors its programming in dialogue with the island’s landscapes, communities, archives and memories. Over time, it has evolved into a festival that weaves ecological sensitivity, live arts, and local knowledge into situated curatorial practices.
The paper then turns to the 2025 edition, Variations on the Singularities of the Sea, which approached the sea not as scenery but as co-author. Central to the program was The Last Lamentation by Valentina Medda, a multimedia work rooted in Sardinian traditions of lament and reimagined as a contemporary ritual for the Mediterranean. Through minimal gestures and layered sound, the work became a performative archive of mourning and transformation.