In collaboration with Theatre O, Daria Martin’s Fellowship explored the impact of trauma on the relationship between mothers and their children. This took several forms, resulting in the creation of a new play, Sheriff, a short film called Tonight the World, and a video game to be included in Daria’s solo exhibition at the Barbican Curve in 2019. Sheriff asks its audience to contemplate what it means ‘to exist on a domestic level when everything around you is being torn apart’.
Aimed at both adults and children, the play takes inspiration from mothers in Mexico, who have taken on roles of the Chief of Police in the country’s drug war. These women are ‘risking everything in order to create a viable future for their children, even if it means sacrificing themselves’, the theatre company say.
Sheriff explores their motivations, actions, and how these impact on their lives and the lives of those around them. Tonight the World is based on the dream diaries of Daria’s grandmother, Susi Stiassni. Fleeing from the Holocaust, Stiassni compiled over 10,000 pages of dream diaries over 35 years, originally for psychoanalytic use. Daria’s film presents snippets of these diaries, providing her interpretation of her grandmother’s writings.
Stiassni’s recollections of her childhood are distorted by time, trauma, and loss, but many of the images she describes revolve around her childhood home - a villa in Brno which is still standing today. Tonight the World stages five scenes from the diaries set in the house, and for the Barbican Curve exhibition this will be accompanied a video-game installation that takes participants on a journey through the house.
Tonight the World was presented at the St John’s seminar in Psychoanalysis in 2018. Currently, Daria is looking to continue her collaboration with Theatre O to develop the short into a feature film.
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