The Unknown of the Seine

The unknown of the Seine is a young lady who was founded dead after having drowned in the river which passes trough Paris around 1886. Finding dead people in the Seine wasn’t an unusual event at all, but this young lady, beyond being beauty and not having a name, was characterized by a delicate and mysterious smile. Her image arrived to us thanks to the cast that somebody made of her probably before being buried. Her funeral mask is all that survives to the time. Nothing else but her human being, her mask, her image and her ghost remains. Are her closed eyes protecting her against the process of mystification and trivialization of the gaze? Is the absence of an identity defending her from the invention of the memory? I will try to give an answer to these and to other questions exactly with my puppets themselves.

Puppeteer | Patrizio Dall’Argine

Assistant | Veronica Ambrosini

Duration | 50’