Pompeii Commitment. Archaeological Matters is the contemporary art programme of the Pompeii Archaeological Park. Launched in 2020, the project acts as a platform for research, experimentation, and production, with the aim of fostering a dialogue between archaeology and the methods of contemporary art, poetry, and curatorial practice – opening up new forms of knowledge and fresh narratives for the Pompeii Archaeological Park.
At the heart of the project lies the recognition of archaeological matters – objects, images, fragments, signs, bodies, but also archives, languages, stories, and methods – as an open field of inquiry, constantly available to be explored and questioned. Pompeii Commitment thus functions as a portal – virtual, yet deeply anchored in the material complexity of the archaeological site – opening onto a space where themes and methodologies can cross-pollinate freely: an invitation to explore Pompeii and its episteme as a terrain of relations, experiences, and reflections on the present and future.
On this basis, the project has developed over the years into multiple strands: digital artistic contributions (Commitments), research-based artistic and curatorial programmes both on site and remote (Fellowships), as well as the production of new artworks that have entered the Park’s collection and been exhibited in Italian and international venues through an extensive network of collaboration with museums and research institutions (Collectio). Alongside these, the digital platform of Pompeii Commitment hosts contributions from artists, curators, and archaeologists in the form of oral testimonies (Fabulae), scholarly materials and documents (Historiae), and a dedicated section for Pompeii’s archaeological matters (Inventory): a hypothetical, transdisciplinary museum bringing together diverse content directly tied to their research – digging tools, graffiti, organic remains, looted objects later returned to the Archaeological Park – while also serving as a collective, open-access archive.
To speak of contemporary art at Pompeii means, inevitably, engaging with a history spanning nearly three centuries. Since its rediscovery in 1748, the “second life” of the ancient city has always been a story of translations, rewritings, and creative interrogations. The allure of Pompeii has drawn generations of artists and scholars – from the era of the Grand Tour to the twentieth century – broadening the imaginary and lived reality of the archaeological site far beyond its physical borders, weaving a dense, layered network of images, stories, and resonances that continue to shape how we see Pompeii today. Far from offering a celebratory or nostalgic revival of that legacy, Pompeii Commitment seeks to gather and critically examine it – deconstructing it, placing it in dialogue with the urgencies of present-day research.
This engagement with contemporary creative languages is not driven by the desire to simply layer today’s practices and aesthetics onto an archaeological backdrop – an operation that, at best, would be redundant. Rather, the perspective of Pompeii Commitment is to reconceive Pompeii as a contact zone: a living laboratory where divergent practices and languages can engage critically with the site’s archaeological matters, generating new hypotheses, relations, and questions that expand how we understand the site, while also opening up new ways of seeing, interpreting material evidence, and thinking about history.
In this sense, Pompeii Commitment does not seek to carve out a distinct or “contemporary” section within the physical or conceptual space of the Archaeological Park. Instead, the platform positions itself as a porous, dynamic framework: a space of relation, passage, and exchange – constantly in dialogue with other institutions and contexts – capable of broadening our critical understanding of Pompeii and opening it to encounters between contemporary artistic research and archaeological practice.
Indeed, one of the driving forces behind the project lies in the recognition of a profound proximity between these two fields. Both contemporary art and archaeology are called upon to work with fragmented materials, ambiguous images, and inevitably partial perspectives – each characterised by a continuous layering of signs. Both disciplines are, by their nature, concerned with how we reconstruct what remains. They are forms of reversible knowledge, constantly questioning the validity of their own interpretative tools. The dialogue between them, then, does not rest on some vague formal analogy, but on a deeper, more spontaneous kinship of methods and ways of seeing.
From this methodological perspective, the Pompeii Archaeological Park presents itself as an ideal field of investigation: a complex, living, ever-changing organism, deeply marked by multiple semantic and temporal layers. The time of the ancient city, halted by the eruption of 79 CE and preserved through unexpected materials and forms. The individual time of its former inhabitants, still speaking to us – stubbornly – of daily gestures, desires, rituals, stories, myths, and images. The time of the catastrophe, still legible in the traces left on objects and bodies, in both domestic and public spaces. The time of the surrounding landscape, continually reshaped under the shadow of Vesuvius. The time of excavation, of the daily work of archaeologists and conservation specialists, as well as the time of the visitors who walk Pompeii’s streets every day, with their own questions and perspectives, which in turn reshape the site’s perception and identity. Finally, the cyclical time of Nature, which continues its course today, just as it did two thousand years ago – indifferent to the transient affairs of humankind.
Every object, every wall, every empty space in Pompeii is the product of overlapping layers: of human action, of environmental forces, of the slow transformations wrought by time itself. A palimpsest of traces that continually shifts from one gaze to another. These deposits of meaning prevent Pompeii from ever becoming a static or neutral space. On the contrary, they render it a dense, living material in constant flux – demanding to be deciphered, questioned, and sometimes simply listened to.
In today’s troubled and uncertain global landscape, Pompeii is perhaps the furthest thing from a symbol of ending. Destroyed – and yet preserved – under tonnes of ash and pumice, the city stands instead as a paradigm of transformation and survival: of materials, histories, and memories subject to inevitable cycles of destruction and renewal. A vital stratification made possible through daily research and the shared commitment of those who care for the site and the construction of a long-term vision in which excavation, restoration, knowledge, and accessibility can coexist.
To work in Pompeii today means, above all, cultivating a mode of attention: a method capable of embracing complexity and incompleteness, and of accepting that the outcomes of our work will remain open-ended. It means proceeding day by day without succumbing to simplifications or shortcuts. In this context, Pompeii Commitment proposes itself as a platform that invites not only exploration of the site’s archaeological matters, but also the forging of an active relationship with them – grounded in awareness, imagination, and critical responsibility. A commitment to approaching Pompeii as a dynamic field for cultural creation, collective research, care, and experimentation.