Sentiero del Teatro accanto alla Follia
Giuliano Scabia and Franco Basaglia
curated by di Andrea Mancini
The exhibition explores the collaboration between Franco Basaglia and Giuliano Scabia, which began in 1971 with the theater workshop “Fourteen Actions for Fourteen Days.” Together, they carried out an artistic project at the Psychiatric Hospital of Trieste, culminating in the creation of the symbolic Marco Cavallo. This project anticipated the Basaglia Law, which revolutionized the treatment of mental illness.
As stated by the curator, Sentiero del Teatro accanto alla follia, was already a project by Giuliano Scabia, accompanied by at least one of the Quaderni del Teatro Vagante, written as an in-depth look at his work. This led to the publication of two notebooks and an exhibition. The first of these books is an extraordinary repertoire of images – partly also featured in the exhibition – that document day by day the commitment of Scabia, Vittorio Basaglia, and many others in Laboratorio P, a disused ward of the psychiatric hospital of Trieste, directed – as is well known – by Franco Basaglia; the other is a book of materials, often unpublished or rare, that tells the exceptional journey of Scabia, alongside mental illness, with a series of critical insights, confessions, uncertainties, deviations, and euphoria, which are hard to imagine, but which tell, better than many other things, the nature of this path, a nature sometimes uncertain, not always oriented towards positive outcomes, even though there is a strong presence of Marco Cavallo, and that – as Giuliano was keen to specify – of the Blue Dragon, seen as magical characters, to solve every problem faced by the hero.
The exhibition thus presents materials from Laboratorio P in Trieste, including drawings, sculptures, photographs, and historical footage. Notable works include the Earthly Paradise, Miss Rosina, and the Blue Dragon of Montelupo. The documentation also celebrates the closure of other asylums, such as the Vigil of Marco Cavallo at San Salvi in 1998.
