Et in Arcadia Ego, the new performance project by Arkadi Zaides, takes as its starting point an eponymous artwork most famously painted by French Classical painter Nicolas Poussin in the 1630s. The painting depicts a pastoral scene where shepherds gather around a tomb, contemplating its cryptic Latin inscription, often translated as “Even in Arcadia, I exist.” This serene yet somber landscape juxtaposes the idealized beauty of Arcadia with the inescapable reality of mortality, serving as a memento mori. Over time, its enigmatic title and atmosphere have sparked conspiracy theories suggesting the work conceals hidden knowledge about life, death, and the afterlife. Some speculate that the tomb holds clues to sacred truths or buried treasures, aligning it with esoteric traditions that hint at forbidden wisdom. Ultimately, the painting invites viewers to ponder whether Arcadia—an imagined paradise—offers the promise of immortality or stands as a reminder of mortality’s dominion, even in utopia.

The performance reopens these questions by transposing Poussin’s static tableau into the realm of live performance, where new resonances emerge through reenactment, the use of digital tools, documentary inquiry, and embodied practice. Rather than simply restaging the scene, the performance ruptures it—activating the image as a living event in which past, present, and possible futures collide. In doing so, it raises key questions: How does Poussin’s pastoral vision resonate today, in a world where utopia is promised to some while death is inflicted upon others? How do the temporalities of living performers and painted figures interact across centuries? And what constraints and possibilities arise when digital technologies are mobilized to engage with analog materials such as a seventeenth-century painting?