Black and white photo of the head and shoulders of a light skinned woman seated outdoors and looking off camera to her left

Marsha Ginsberg

Rolland Rome Prize
February 17–April 3, 2020
Profession
Performance Designer, New York
Project title
The Dreamworlds of the Utopian Future of the Past
Project description

As a maker of spaces, environments, and clothes for live performance, I have expanded my practice to develop experimental music works in which visuals and environment are initiating elements and theme. In Rome I will conduct research for the second of a trilogy on contemporary urban space. Using the framework of “dreamworlds” of modernity (Walter Benjamin), I will focus on how people in the past imagined their utopian architectural future (in concept and actuality). I will trace the legacy behind modernist and rationalist architecture in Rome and surrounding areas in the prewar period: how it ultimately served the Fascist regime in the creation of new towns and public gathering arenas. I intend to research multiple historic moments in the status of specific buildings with an observing eye to their performability in the present. Adalberto Libera’s and Luigi Moretti’s Rome projects and the new towns of the Agro Pontino are of special interest. This project is creative and generative.