“The vivarium, or reptilarium, is a space that preserves life and danger, where people used to keep moray eels and snakes, toothy creatures and poisonous beasts. Today, however, the reptilarium resounds with the delightful clamour of children tapping their fingernails on the glass. Yet the power of glass remains, a safe and invisible boundary in the presence of false danger. “The Phasma Paradox, Georges Didi Huberman.

In the vivarium (rettilario in Italian), the lives of small animals become the object of human attention. Starting off with this idea and adapting it to an urban space, the Italian performer Sara Leghissa invites the spectators equipped with headphones to modify his perception of familiar elements, from one scale to another, from the macro to the microscopic, and vice versa, inside and outside a glass cage. The very nature of the elements he sees and hears (trains chugging, voices, footsteps in a station…) changes, slipping into new, more abstract territories, making his own environment less familiar. How do you make a city resonate by collecting some of the materials that is made up of? To better answer this question, the artist is inspired by the work of foley – the reproduction of everyday sound effects for film dubbing. Superimposing soundscapes and city life, Sara Leghissa gives voice to the humanity within.