La sombra que deja el hilo
The shadow left by the thread 

Ethnographic performative project

Keywords: transgenerational, elders women, memory, ethnographic theatre, dystopian future, collective care, performative archiving

Ideation and project diretion - Carlo Sella
Dramaturgy - Carlo Galiero
Archive project - Catarina de Simão
Production - Mari Edgar
Production assistance - Amaia Rodriguez Parrado, Ines David Cieutat
Pictures and videos - Francesco Bignardi, Francesco Flora
Costumes - Valentina Perini
Ethnographic supervision -  Nuria Timmermann
Graphic supervision - Vlio Velema

An Arraiga, lab of rooted imagination project
Hosted by - Sala Polivalente de Montbau, Espai Jove Palau Alòs
With the support of - Culture Moves Europe 2024

La sombra que deja el hilo (the shadow left by the thread) is a participatory theatre project created after a long-term, patchwork ethnographic process with elder women (most of them working-class immigrants) living in the Montbau neighborhood of Barcelona. This collaboration became the foundation for a site-specific performance format that is reactivated in each new location through a three-day memory and theatre lab with local elder women. Their voices, reflections, and lived knowledge are the dramaturgical engine of the piece. The dramaturgical framework weaves together lived memories with speculative fiction. The material shared in the workshops is transported into a dystopian future where older women are persecuted unless they are considered “useful.” This imagined scenario exposes the underlying logic of turbocapitalism, a system that denies care, punishes fragility, and erases those who cannot be measured by productivity. At its core, the project is an act of collective re-inscription. It creates a space for elder women to revisit their personal histories, confront cultural silence, and occupy public space through performance. The resulting piece functions as both a political fable and a counter-archive, insisting on the enduring presence and knowledge of those who have often been rendered invisible. Watch the trailer here.