Ghosts Dissection

The jury's
conclusion

In a country permeated with austerity, how does the structural normalization of psychologically harmful inequality affect everyday life? Drawing on Ibsen’s «Ghosts», this group of young, talented Buenos Aires-based artists investigates how austerity weighs on the individual in contemporary Argentina. «Ghost Dissection» a site-specific performance to be set in the former dissection hall in the Museum part of Bralio Aurelio Moyano hospital. The chosen location is both aesthetically beautiful and unsettling. The jury is intrigued to see how space can support the essence of the story while providing a compelling physical framework for a site-specific performance in which the audience moves through the building as the story unfolds. Drawing on the long tradition of forum theatre in Argentina and neighboring countries, the artists aim to engage the audience in a shared encounter, encouraging reflection, questioning, and the exchange of different experiences and points of view. The idea of space as a counterpart capable of sustaining tension is thoroughly emphasized. Ghost Dissection impresses with its thoughtful approach to the dramaturgy of space as an essential element. To quote: «Filled with brains and animals preserved in formaldehyde since the nineteenth century, the space presents itself like a ghostly environment in the service of the Darwinian naturalist project: A laboratory in which to dissect the human condition.» This, in combination with a participatory, egalitarian methodological approach designed to include and involve, holds great potential for what could become a highly engaging performance for audiences from all walks of life.

About the project

“Ghosts Dissection” is a site-specific theatrical intervention staged in anatomical theaters and dissection rooms. It proposes a contemporary reversal of Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen as a starting point for a collective conversation about mental health and its social dimension, revisiting and updating some of the questions posed by naturalism as both a literary and scientific movement.
The syphilis and cognitive decline that Ibsen portrayed in 1881 are not relics of the past: in an Argentina experiencing a historic resurgence of syphilis—and where mental health has ceased to be merely an individual issue and has instead become a collective affliction—recent national government budget proposals have reduced by more than 90% the funds allocated to health promotion and support policies, leaving hospitals, community centers, and territorial care networks without the minimal resources needed to sustain essential services.
Within the Ibsenian corpus, Ghosts is particularly enigmatic because it contains two antagonistic discourses: it is a naturalist play that metaphorizes illness as something ghostly and ineffable through images and tropes with a Symbolist tint; heredity and positivist determinism function as the triggers of the tragedy. Building on this premise, the project proposes to create a dramaturgy of space that situates the action of the original play on the dissection table—the place where Oswald ultimately arrives as a result of his cognitive deterioration. This stage experience will draw on the distinctive architecture of anatomical theaters—a space that also contains these two discourses, naturalism and the spectral—as a stimulus for generating a kind of laboratory in which the characters and the play itself will be literally dissected, taking with surgical precision their characters, themes, and structure in order to make them speak to the present. It is a poetic and political exercise: imagining what Ghosts would narrate if it had been written today—what Ibsen would narrate now. The project aspires to be replicated in anatomical theaters around the world, opening this conversation in new latitudes.

Artists
Valentino Grizutti was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on July 7, 2001.
He is an actor, playwright, and theatre director. From a very young age, he began working as an actor, taking part in various projects at institutions such as the Buenos Aires Theatre Complex (Complejo Teatral de Buenos Aires), the National Theatre Cervantes (Teatro Nacional Cervantes), the Recoleta Cultural Center (Centro Cultural Recoleta), among others. As a playwright, his work has been distinguished and awarded by institutions including UNICEF, the National University of the Arts, and the Argentine Academy of Letters.
He has received numerous recognitions for his work, including the Creation Grant from the National Arts Fund (Fondo Nacional de las Artes), the SAGAI National Grant, the “S” Prize, First Prize at the “Roberto Arlt” University Playwriting Competition, a Special Mention from the Argentine Academy of Letters Playwriting Prize, and a nomination for the Trinidad Guevara Awards.
He is the founder of Compañía Labrusca, a collective of performing arts creators dedicated to exploring and reflecting on modes of representation, with which he has premiered three productions under his direction.
As a playwright and director, his body of work to date includes: Persona (2018, co-written with Emiliano Dionisi), Toma Tres (2022), Así así, acá acá (2022), Casual de noche (2023), PLOT (2024), and Chayka (2026).
His works have been invited to participate in various festivals, including the Buenos Aires International Festival (FIBA), the ARTHAUS Reuniones series, the internationalization platform aHora, the Ciclo Común Festival in the city of La Plata, and the Morón Emergente Festival, among others.

Agustín Gagliardi was born in Pergamino, Argentina, on July 20, 1988.
He is a filmmaker, producer, and actor. He studied Film Directing at the University of Cinema in Buenos Aires (Universidad del Cine) and trained concurrently as an actor. He received the 2022 Trinidad Guevara Award from Buenos Aires council, for Male Breakthrough in Theatre for his performance in Lorca, el teatro bajo la arena, directed by Laura Paredes.
In theatre, he has performed in Lorca, the Theatre Beneath the Sand by Laura Paredes; PLOT by Valentino Grizutti; ¡Oh crazy heads of the religious! by Mia Miceli; The animal life by Julián Rodríguez Rona, among others.
In film, he has appeared in Fantastic Sisters by Fabiana Tiscornia (Netflix, 2024); Clara gets lost in the woods by Camila Fabbri (San Sebastián Film Festival, 2023); Long Time No Sleep by Agustín Godoy (Tallinn Black Nights, 2022); Next film of Carmen Trevillo by Gonzalo García Pelayo (2022); Album for the Youth by Malena Solarz (Jeonju Film Festival, 2022); We Will Never Die (San Sebastián Film Festival, 2020); and The flower by Mariano Llinás (Locarno Film Festival, 2018), among others.
As a producer, his credits include The Pleasure Is Mine by Sacha Amaral (Grand Prix, BAFICI 2024); The Face of the Jellyfish by Melisa Liebenthal (Berlinale Forum, 2023); Long Time No Sleep by Agustín Godoy (Tallinn Black Nights, 2022); Atlas by Masllorens & Gaona (Mar del Plata International Film Festival, 2021); Provincial City by Rodrigo Moreno (Rotterdam Film Festival, 2018); and The Gold Bug by Alejo Moguillansky (Locarno Film Festival, 2014).
He also was assistant director to theatre director Mariano Pensotti on the cinematic-theatrical projects El Público, The Audience, and Het Publiek, filmed and staged respectively in Buenos Aires (FIBA, Argentina), Athens (Greece), and Brussels (Belgium).

Guido Losantos was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 5, 1988.
He is an actor, playwright, and theatre director. He studied at the National University of the Arts (Universidad Nacional de las Artes – UNA). Among his teachers are Rafael Spregelburd, Andrea Garrote, Matías Feldman, Santiago Gobernori, and Bernardo Cappa.
In theatre, as an actor, he has premiered more than 20 productions, including INFERNO (2022–2025) by Rafael Spregelburd, premiered in the city of Buenos Aires and presented at Fondazione Teatro Due (Parma), the Autumn Festival (Madrid), Centro Cultural Las Condes, Fundación a Mil Festival (Santiago de Chile), Teatro Nacional Sucre (Quito), and in numerous provinces across Argentina; La Terquedad (2017–2018) by Rafael Spregelburd, premiered at the National Theatre Cervantes; Imagen Velada (2024–2025) by Santiago Gobernori; PLOT (2024–2025) by Valentino Grizutti; Proyecto Pruebas (2013–2016) by Matías Feldman, premiered at the San Martín Theatre Complex (Complejo Teatral San Martín)—including Prueba 1: El espectador, Prueba 2: La desintegración, and Prueba 3: Las convenciones – El Idiota; Pasolini – Invocation V (2016–2018) and Gothic Fable (2014–2015) by Matías Feldman. With many of these productions, he toured municipal, national, and private theatres in various Argentine cities, including Rosario, Córdoba, Santa Fé, Rafaela, Paraná, Salta, La Rioja, and San Martín de los Andes.
In film, he acted in Come to My House This Christmas (2022) by Sabrina Campos; Karakol (2019) by Saula Benavente; A Blond (2018) by Marco Berger; and The Two Popes (2017) by Fernando Meirelles, produced by Netflix.
In 2021, he premiered his debut work as director and playwright, GANSOS, at Espacio Callejón. The production participated in the CABA Theatre Festival (Fiesta CABA) organized by the National Theatre Institute in 2022.