Valerie Tameu is a choreographer, dancer and performer who lives and works in Turin, Italy. Their work is concerned with composing bodies and ideas through processes of affective mapping, aimed at tracing associations, relational landscapes, and emotive geographies.
In the new SPAZIO GRIOT residency, supported by and produced in collaboration with Fondazione Polo del '900, Valerie Tameu is developing Dove hanno tremato le placche. The new multidisciplinary project takes the shape of historical research, workshop and performance. It stems from an artistic practice of archiving and affective mapping that draws from the artist's archival photographic collection. Taking the story of their family's migration to Turin as a point of departure, the work explores Turin between 1980 and 1981, a time when working-class life in the Fiat Mirafiori factories and trade union struggles coincided with their parents' migration from Calabria and post-colonial Cameroon.
Through their artistic practice, Tameu investigates and brings into dialogue different devices and processes of memorisation: the (institutional) archive—a place that collects, selects and formalizes histories and identities—and family and personal archives, which expand and recover what was discarded.
Between April and June 2023, the artist will engage with other performance artists, exploring workshop practices with performer and choreographer Cherish Menzo (Netherlands/Suriname; Jezebel, 2019; Darkmatter, 2022), alternative archival practices with performer, activist and researcher Ilenia Caleo (Italy; Pick Pocket Paradise, 2022; The present is not enough, 2023); and with the archivists of the Fondazione Istituto Piemontese Antonio Gramsci and the Fondazione Vera Nocentini of Polo del '900.
During the residency, the artist will initiate a series of conversations with local organizations and families to recall and re-construct part of a collective history linked to migration, family and parenthood as well as urban and social geographies.
Tameu will debut the performance resulting from the residency, Dove Hanno Tremato Le Placche at Fondazione Polo del '900 in June 2023.
Polo del '900
The Polo del '900 is a cultural centre committed to promoting the civic and cultural growth of citizens in relation to the present and future issues of society, starting with reflection on the history of the 20th century.