Magic shaped the modern world
Maria Celina Val

︎19th November 2021

Aligned in perfect coherence with the lunar eclipse which was happening on Friday the 19th, Maria’s performance was informed by the myths of the “Blood Moon” and the rituals connected to nature and spirits happening around the fire under the red light of the night, which has its roots back to the primitive tribes.



In ‘Magic shape the modern world Maria’ performed an interpretation of a full moon dance around the artworks in an attempt to travel between reality and fiction, magic and logic, pure and evil, femininity and masculinity, nature and artificial, rhythm and randomness from which our world builds its societies. She chose words from ‘Sapiens a brief history of humankind’ by Yuval Noah Harari to try and approach what this dance means for her “People easily acknowledge that ‘primitive tribes’ cement their social order by believing in ghosts and spirits and gathering each full moon to dance together around the campfire. What we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function on exactly the same basis.”

The title of the piece was extracted from the introduction of the book ‘Stranger Magic: Charmed States & the Arabian Nights’ by Marina Warner

︎ Watch it here