Mundus Transfiguratus
Towards a Queer Ecological Mythology
Mundus Transfiguratus depicts an alternative living mythological world where queer transmogrified non-human beings take centre stage and challenge the established perception of human supremacy. The installations and performances that form part of this project emerge as an experimental participatory psychodrama with a counter narrative interwoven with fiction and reality, legends and biographies, to explore conflict, displacement and trauma, but also to celebrate hope and love, and overcoming adversity.
Part 1. The Journeys of Cliza
Preparation for Battle
In preparation for battle, Cliza and their retinue set up an itinerant court in the subterranean bowels of Cosmo Trastevere, in Rome.
Reel By Cosmo Trastevere
Storyline
The House of Cliza
The House of Cliza are human-wild boar descendants of Turiacus. The House governed the land of Lusibriga for centuries until the War of the Winding Rivers. This brutal conflict, waged against the human tribes of the river Cynanas, stretched across twenty-two bitter years and ultimately brought the House to ruin. Its population was slaughtered, its power broken. The few surviving members of the House went into exile over the mountains, carrying with them a vast library of ancient manuscripts, the last echoes of a fallen dynasty. Though much was lost in the war, one artifact survived, the fabled Gloves of a Thousand Silver Hairs. Legend says that these gloves were crafted by an ancestor of Cliza who saved a long-haired silver lynx that had been wounded by human hunters. The lynx became a loyal companion to the House, and after many years, during a silver full moon, it shed its coat and transformed into a two-headed legless lizard. From its miraculous silver hairs, the gloves were spun. Each hair holds a potent enchantment, and when plucked from the glove, that spell is unleashed in an instant.
Cliza
Cliza, head of the House of Cliza, is a masterful warrior and brilliant military strategist, as well as the devoted guardian of their family’s sacred library. Beyond the battlefield, Cliza is also a weaver of rare skill. Once, in a state of trance, possessed by the spirit of Aranea, a human-spider deity, they wove a magical corset that grants its wearer immense strength. Over the years, the corset has been battered in countless battles, and each repair has weakened its strength. Until Cliza can once again summon the spirt of Aranea, the corset remains carefully sealed away, wrapped in a cloth of gold spun by Theia. Cliza was once engaged to Filipa, a descendant of Poseidon. The union was broken when Cliza discovered that Filipa was having an affair with Oretta, Cliza’s longtime rival, which led to the birth of a child, Orella. Cliza, heartbroken and proud, severed all ties. They remain without an heir. Haunted by the slaughter of their ancestors at the hands of human warriors, Cliza is driven by a single purpose: vengeance and the reclamation of their ancestral land. During the fall of their queerdom, Cliza was abducted and raped by an unknown warrior who had taken the form of a wolf. Cliza's escape came only through the intervention of a sorcerer who shape-shifted into an owl, attacking the wolf with their venomous talons that blinded and killed the beast. Cliza survived, scarred, but unbroken. Their mission endures, fuelled by pain and loss.
Clizette and Clizilde are Cliza’s most trusted lead warriors. They are fierce, loyal, and bound to their leader by both bloodshed and desire. The three share a complex, triangular bond, though Clizette and Clizilde quietly conceal the depth of their love for one another to protect Cliza’s heart from jealousy. Born into a long-lived warrior class, they carry the ancestral weight of honour and survival. Veterans of the war against the Cynanas tribes, they stood side by side with Cliza through blood-soaked fields. Together, they also endured the brutal siege of Transterrum, waged against the House of Oretta; a battle that forged an unspoken pact of loyalty among them, sealed in grief and steel.