as part of the Fabbrica Europa 2026 festival

«The study of meteorology, like many other things, only leads to despair.»
J. W. Goethe

Reality is broken. Bodies collapsing, falling apart, dissolving into smoke, quivering – fluids condensing, gelatinous and sticky presences generating constant glitches, disturbances/disruptions/perturbations. Mists, clouds, haze, vapours.

“temporale”: in italian, concerning time, historical or chronological; in meteorology, it indicates bad weather, a violent atmospheric perturbation. One after another, the backrooms unfold: saturated yellow spaces, damp carpeting, wallpaper and flashing neon lights – faulty images coming from the network, quasi-places that do not exist. Something happened in these endlessly repeated yellow rooms, but we don’t know what. There is a sense of disorientation, unfamiliarity, like entering the back of the world.

The dramaturgy combines meteorologies, atmospheres conceived as spatialised emotions and affective states that activate intense climatic changes (and vice versa). “temporale” moves through the unrest of the present time. Space fills with anguish, wonder, uncontrollable laughter, melancholy and desolation — a slow pulverization of the world.

The Sonnets of Despair issue the weather reports of our perturbations. After all, “a lesbian tragedy”. To speak of how we are, one must write with clouds and gaseous matter. The inside is outside, the outside is inside.

Calderoni-Caleo met in 2012 at the Teatro Valle Occupato during Motus’s Animale Politico Project. They created a nomadic atelier of workshops and artistic residences. Since 2017, they have been teaching in the Visual Arts Laboratory at IUAV University of Venice. Following their participation in the 2018 Biennale College Teatro with a Masterclass, they created KISS, a performance project with 23 performers produced by the Santarcangelo Festival, CSS Udine and Motus Vague. For the Queering Platform of the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, they co-curate the SO IT IS transnational project. In 2021 they took part in Flu水o, the crossdisciplinary project directed by Alessandro Sciarroni and winner of Italian Council 2020, for which they created the performance action thefutureisNOW?. In 2022, they created the installation Pick Pocket Paradise for the exhibition “Espressioni con frazioni” at Castello di Rivoli – Museum of Contemporary Art (Turin). They were associate artists of the Italian Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.
In 2023, their performance The Present Is Not Enough premiered in Hamburg, co-produced by Azienda Speciale Palaexpo – Mattatoio | Progetto Prender-si Cura, Kampnagel (Hamburg), Kunstencentrum Vooruit vzw (Ghent), and Motus Vague. For the 2025–2028 triennium, they will serve as co-curators of the Short Theatre Festival (Rome), together with Silvia Bottiroli and Michele Di Stefano.
For the 2025–2028 three-year term, they will be co-curators the international performing arts festival Short Theatre alongside Silvia Bottiroli and Michele Di Stefano.

by Silvia Calderoni and Ilenia Caleo
with Silvia Calderoni, Ilenia Caleo, Ondina Quadri, Francesca Turrini
sound atmosphere: Martina Ruggeri
Sonnets of Despair by Ilenia Caleo, inspired by J.W.Goethe’s The Shape of Clouds
translation: Paola Bono
organization and care: Elisa Bartolucci
residencies: PARC Firenze; BASE Milano; Residenza Centrale Fies, with the support of Passo Nord; Atelier Sì – Bologna, Lavanderia a Vapore Torino, Istituto di Cultura italiano, Paris; in collaboration with AMAT e Comune di Pesaro per RAM – Residenze Artistiche Marchigiane
co-productions: VIELNURVIEL (Ghent); Motus Vague; Emilia Romagna Teatro ERT / Teatro Nazionale
thanks to: Alessandra Indolfi, Roberta Indolfi, Paola Granato, Eva Bruno, Vilma Carlini, Ulisse Poggioni

photo (detail): Laura Farneti