This chapter focuses on the heritagization and artistic (re)appropriations of the sonic and visual traces of tarantism. The four different artistic and/or cultural interventions that I present and analyze in the following include the photography series "Parallel Eyes" by Alessia Rollo (2019-ongoing), a multimedia installation entitled 'Tanz Sediment: Self-Portrait of Madness' by Alessandra Eramo (2019), as well as the release of a double LP and accompanying book publication, "Tarantismo: Odyssey of an Italian Ritual" (2019), by the artist collective FLEE Project. The fourth example differs in scope and approach in the sense that it covers the Dior Cruise 2021, the presentation of the fashion house's couture collection on the theme of tarantism. In all four cases, the artists/creative directors/editors claim their own Apulian origin as the main source of inspiration and explicitly draw on the ethnographic works of anthropologist and historian of religion Ernesto de Martino as a kind of "cultural heritage" that they intend to perpetuate, extend, and/or to contest.


Originally commissioned by Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Klangkunst Program 2020 as radiophonic work, "Tanz Sediment" materialised as a multimedia installation presented at SAVVY Contemporary in the group exhibition "Ultrasanity" in Berlin.