WERKstatt Körper: we didn’t start the fire

Inspired by Raphael’s fresco ‘The Fire in Borgo’, which depicts the fire of 847 in Rome’s Borgo district, second-year students are working on the questions: Who could the figures in the picture have been? What do their bodies reveal about their themes, and how can these be transferred to their own bodies? As if the figures were ‘stepping out of the painting’, the students use only body language to tell the stories of the figures before, during and after the fire. At the same time, human emotions triggered by this extreme situation can be experienced in physical images. According to history, the historic fire in Borgo was extinguished solely by the blessing of Pope Leo IV. Raphael, however, breaks with classical rules of composition and does not place the decisive main character Leo IV at the centre, but rather the people fighting the flames with the courage of despair. The WERKstatt also remains close to people and what they can achieve on their own.