History of the Present is an experimental opera-film made collaboratively by Maria Fusco and Margaret Salmon, featuring new compositions by Annea Lockwood, libretto by Maria and improvisational vocal work by Héloïse Werner. 

This intersectional, intergenerational feminist work forefronts working-class women’s voices to ask: who has the right to speak, and in what way? Layering sociological, cultural, and political themes from the recent history of Northern Ireland, the work exercises voice, breath and field-recording composition through a range of film techniques and operatic articulations, to amplify marginalised stories. 

Made on 35mm History of the Present observes how defensive architecture defines movement to enforce intersectional histories and identities within daily experiences in conflict and post-conflict zones on an international level.

Who is Maria Fusco?

Maria Fusco is an award-winning working-class writer, born and brought up in Belfast, now living in Scotland. Her interdisciplinary work spans the registers of critical, fiction and performance writing; she has authored six books, and written and directed four major performance works. Her work has been commissioned by bodies including: Artangel, BBC Radio 4 Contemporary Calgary and Centre Pompidou. 

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, was writer-in-residence at the Whitechapel Gallery and The Lisbon Architecture Triennale and an Engender Fellow at the Royal Opera House. She is currently Professor of Interdisciplinary Writing at the University of Dundee, previously holding academic posts at the University of Edinburgh and as Director of Art Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. 

mariafusco.net