Strongly desired by Adriano Pedrosa after seeing the project at the Istanbul Biennial, Marco Scotini’s project perfectly embodies the theme Strangers Everywhere, chosen this year by the curator.
At the ongoing Biennale, a dedicated section at the Arsenale is devoted to the grand special project Disobedience Archive (the Zoetrope), founded in Berlin in 2005 by Marco Scotini. This ever-evolving video archive focuses on the relationship between artistic acts of political and civil disobedience and the “visual” documentation of actions against the system. The subtitle Zootropia references the 19th-century optical device, a precursor to cinema used to view moving images, and the exhibition space’s architecture mirrors this concept.
Scotini has been collaborating for over 20 years with artists, directors, activists, and filmmakers, showcasing work in major international institutions such as the Castello di Rivoli, MIT in Boston, and the St. Petersburg Festival. His project collects voices of rebellion, conflict, and uprisings. Like all archives, Disobedience Archive houses video testimonies from numerous artists, including Zanele Muholi, Hito Steyerl, and Liminal & Border Forensics, telling stories of protests, interviews, and performances. Adriano Pedrosa strongly supported the project after seeing it at the Istanbul Biennial, as it perfectly embodies this year’s curatorial theme Strangers Everywhere. The videos are divided into two main sections conceived specifically for the Biennale: Diaspora Activism and Gender Disobedience. Disobedience Archive includes works by 39 artists and collectives created between 1975 and 2023.
What makes Disobedience unique is its versatility and nomadic nature, constantly evolving based on the location it is exhibited, incorporating new testimonies. To date, more than 200 video and film materials have been collected, reassembled, and recombined based on the theme and the situation at hand. At the Biennale, the two featured themes revolve around migration, the crossing of national borders, and LGBTQ+ issues and movements—thus reflecting a continuous blending and nomadism of genders and people. “It is very important in this period and in our world to emphasize the importance of history,” says Scotini, “which has been silenced and rewritten. It’s as if we have been dispossessed of history, made silent on many issues. The task of these materials is also to denounce the purely media representation of history, affirming its cultural and political significance.”
