Txuspo Poyo
Gran Hotel Nazareno


2021
Real Academia de España en Roma, Rome

The film project analyzes the symbolic, metaphorical and literal displacements of the Natural Science cabinets used as a pedagogical model in religious schools.
These cabinets, started in the 18th century and still in use today, incorporated collections of minerals, herbalists or exotic stuffed animals, among other things, many of them coming from their missions in the American, African and Asian colonies.
The Nazarene College, founded by Joseph Calasanzio in 1630 in the city of Rome, was the first free public school in Europe. After almost 400 years of educational activity, the building was recently sold to a hotel lobby for conversion into a luxury hotel. After this real estate operation, the art collections, the library and the Natural Sciences Department itself were deposited in the various sites owned by the Piarists in Rome and abroad.
The bony body of a whale captured on April 14, 1843 in Greenland has been part of that school until its closure, being finally assigned to the Guiseppe Calasanzio Institute along with the rest of the cabinet.
Its transfer from this educational institution has been carried out in a van traveling through the emblematic places of Rome, with its subsequent installation in the portrait room of the Academy, turning this place not only into a cabinet, but also into a space for pedagogical practice and reflection. The beached body of this whale whispers the end of an era, while it remains in the imaginary of some generations.

Project management: Matteo Binci