UNHAPPEN UNHAPPEN UNHAPPEN - PEPPER'S GHOST DIORAMAS
28TH JUNE - 27TH JULY 2025
FORMER BAPTISTERY OF THE MANNA D'ORO - SPOLETO
Four animated dioramas were premiered in the evocative setting of the Manna d’Oro. The artworks were developed by combining tabletop theatre and puppetry with the Victorian theatrical illusion of the “Pepper’s Ghost,” popularized by John Henry Pepper in 1862. Transposing their narratives from the stage to the miniaturized space of a diorama — a sort of box with one side open to the viewer's perspective — William Kentridge and artists Anathi Conjwa, Micca Manganye, and Sabine Theunissen used the “Pepper’s Ghost” technique in a distinctive way. The method is based on the use of half-silvered mirrors: objects or performers become visible when lit behind the glass, while images can be seen when lit in front of the mirror.
With the introduction of video compositing and live projection, combined with sound, music, and lighting design, multi-layered illusory effects become possible, enabling these miniature performative spaces to display complete narrative worlds. Since 2019, the use of Pepper’s Ghost has become one of the signature practices of The Centre for the Less Good Idea, the interdisciplinary center for performing arts co-founded in 2016 in Johannesburg, South Africa, by William Kentridge and Bronwyn Lace. The title is the repetition of a non-existent word, Unhappen, and it describes the desire to reverse past trauma, despite its evident impossibility.
In the context of the Centre, this trauma refers to the history of apartheid and colonization, but it also extends to difficult personal experiences. The repetition is conflicting: it both reinforces the memory, while acting as a mantra — or a prayer attempting to fulfill the longing for reconciliation with the past and history. In this process, the use of the Pepper’s Ghost technique allows the artists to construct and deconstruct memories, playing with remembrance and delving into painful and controversial stories. The layered and continuous performative space of the animated dioramas in UNHAPPEN UNHAPPEN UNHAPPEN draws on a variety of themes.
TATA
by Anathi Conjwa
In Tata, Anathi Conjwa embodies and commemorates her late father, a veteran of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), acknowledging the sacrifices made by South African freedom fighters in the name of the country’s democracy. Military boots drop like bombs against the backdrop of Conjwa’s performance-in-miniature as her figure turns, sings, laments, and pays tribute to this history.
mayakowski
by William Kentridge
William Kentridge employs Pepper’s Ghost in an experimental version of the avant-garde tragedy Mayakovsky, in which text and performance are paired with his drawings and animations. It is a meditation on the performativity of prose and the use of language as a balm (or a form of satire) in how we go about the act of living today.
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Hands
by Micca Manganye
In Hands, Micca Manganye creates an engaging, short-form musical and performance-based work that explores the body as an inherently percussive tool, using the Pepper’s Ghost illusion to stage an escape act. Disembodied hands tap out a rhythm, followed by a miniature version of Manganye appearing inside a water jug. He saves himself from drowning by drinking the water through a straw. Music and play are the driving forces behind this transformation, a metaphor for renewal through suffering: as physical space contracts, imagination expands.
A moment in the wind
by Sabine Theunissen
Scenographer, set designer and long-time Kentridge collaborator, Sabine Theunissen, created a brand-new work for the Pepper’s Ghost performance diorama, A Moment in the Wind. Blending her signature scenographic style with projected, puppet-based vignettes, Theunissen’s engagement with the Pepper’s Ghost allows for an immersive, performative installation in miniature.
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