MEMORY OF MANKIND
Deep inside a salt mine in the Austrian Alps lies an archive created by ceramist Martin Kunze that he calls “Memory of Mankind”. Since 2012, he has crafted a collection of ceramic plates containing text and images to ‘back up’ human civilization and preserve all existing knowledge about our modern times. Kunze’s ultimate aim is to create a time capsule that could last a million years, hoping that future civilisations will find the archive and learn about our story. But what do you want people a million years from now to know about us? How do you even start? And what gives one man the right to tell the story of everyone? The performance interweaves the tale of Martin Kunze with other stories based on documentary material. Among them, we meet a man who suffers from a rare type of amnesia that wipes his memory clean and a queer archaeologist who questions our relationship to history. Bringing the characters and audience together in the same space, the performance poses an existential question: why would it be better to remember than to forget?
The play premiered at Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels in May 2024 and is a co-production between Festival d’Automne in Paris, Wiener Festwochen in Vienna and Piccolo Teatro in Milan, among other European theaters and festivals. For a full tour schedule see calendar.
INFO & CREDITS
ORIGINAL TITLE Memory of Mankind
LANGUAGE French
LENGTH 90 min
YEARS 2024-
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Marcus Lindeen
CONCEPT Marcus Lindeen, Marianne Ségol
DRAMATURGY AND TRANSLATION Marianne Ségol
MUSIC AND SOUND DESIGN Hans Appelqvist
SCENOGRAPHY Mathieu Lorry-Dupuy
LIGHTS Diane Guérin
COSTUME DESIGN Charlotte Legal
CASTING DIRECTOR Naelle Dariya
STAGE MANAGER David Marain
SOUND TECHNICIAN Nicolas Brusq
VIDEO TECHNICIAN Dimitri Blin
PRODUCTION ADMINISTRATION Emmanuelle Ossena, Charlotte Pesle Beal et Lison Bellanger | EPOC productions
CAST
Sofia Aouine, Driver, Axel Ravier, Jean-Philippe Uzan
VOICE ACTORS FOR SOUND SCRIPT
Marianne Ségol, Gabriel Dufay, Julien Lewkowicz, Olga Mouak and Nathan Jousni
PRODUCTION
Compagnie Wild Minds
CO-PRODUCTION
T2G Théâtre de Gennevilliers CDN
Festival d'Automne Paris
Piccolo Teatro di Milano - Teatro d'Europa
La Comédie de Caen CDN de Normandie
Le META CDN Poitiers Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Nouveau Théâtre de Besançon CDN
Le Quai, CDN Angers Pays de la Loire
Kunstenfestivaldesarts Bruxelles
Wiener Festwochen Freie Republik Wien
Le Grand T NantesLe Lieu Unique Nantes
PEP Pays-de-Loire
WITH SUPPORT FROM
Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, ADAMI,
Ministère de la Culture – Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles d’Île-de-France
TOUR PRODUCTION 2024-2025
Le Quai CDN Angers Pays-de-Loire
EXTRA MATERIAL
︎ Download production presentation (English)
︎ Download production presentation (French)
︎ Review from Etcetera Magazine (English)
