Flee Project Revives Tarantism Ritual with Vinyl, Book, and Art

The creative platform Flee, founded by Alan Marzo, Olivier Duport, and Carl Åhnebrink, launches a multidisciplinary project on Pizzica and Tarantism, including a vinyl record, a book, conferences, exhibitions, and study days. The vinyl features original recordings from the late 1950s by Diego Carpitella, Ernesto de Martino, and Alan Lomax, alongside six new electronic reinterpretations by artists such as Bjorn Torske & Trym Søvdsnes, LNS, UFFE, KMRU, Bottin, and Don’t DJ. The book collects nine expert testimonies, including contributions from Luigi Chiriatti, filmmaker Edoardo Winspeare, Claudia Attimonelli, Salvatore Bevilacqua, Gino Di Mitri, and Mattia Zoppellaro. Artist Pamela Diamante, represented by Gilda Lavia gallery, created a conceptual work pairing a weathered Lecce stone with a photograph of the Maenad of Scopas (330 BC). The project revisits the tarantism phenomenon documented by anthropologist Ernesto De Martino in his 1959 study "La terra del rimorso," and photographer Chiara Samugheo's 1954 images of tarantate in Galatina. Flee aims to revive a suppressed cultural heritage, contrasting Italy's post-war economic boom with the denial of peasant traditions.