On 23 February the Merano Arte exhibition season opens with the interdisciplinary project, in collaboration with the Merano Academy and the Sonora Festival, NIBELUNGEN: the return, within which the exhibition I M A G I N E W O R L D S then, after, today, edited by Harald F. Theiss.

The project focuses on the manuscript of the “Nibelungenlied” [Singing of the Nibelungenlied], dating back to around 1300, found in Latsch, Alto Adige, and currently in the possession of the State Library of Berlin.

The Nibelungenlied is the most important epic poem of medieval German literature. Composed around 1200, starting from numerous legends handed down orally, it includes two different narrative levels: a first nucleus tells the heroic deeds of Siegfried, such as the killing of the dragon and the conquest of a treasure of inestimable value, and has roots in sagas Scandinavian of the early Middle Ages; a second deals with a series of historical events linked to the fall of the Burgundians.

The analysis of the manuscript offers the possibility of reconsidering various aspects of European and non-European cultural history. Furthermore, the impact that the Nibelungenlied has had and the different interpretative possibilities that have been proposed represent aspects that are perhaps even more significant than the work itself, and stand as a starting point for an exhibition practice based on an extra-literary narrative.

The exhibition I M A G I N E W O R L D S explores, with the tools of art, the sociopolitical relevance and the formation of identity functions, focusing on the encounter between visual and written language. Starting from works of contemporary art and a participatory project, it allows critical reflections, contextualizations and reconstructions of something that goes beyond simple traditional narration: it questions collective memory and the relationship between the construction and deconstruction of Eurocentric myths in an era of post-colonial and post-migratory redefinition of the world. In the context of social concepts, the ways in which something could have been then, was after, and is today are examined. The exhibition is also about the emergence of new images of self and others. It establishes connections with the formation of classic heroic images and their contemporary media manifestations, but also with changes in gender roles. In particular, the ideal of courtly love represents a system of values ​​that still influences social norms today and whose in-depth understanding can help clarify more recent cultural actions, not only with regards to queer-feminist institutional criticism and perspectives gender specifics.