The work of Augustas Serapinas is often marked by an intense and empathic re-appropriation and reinterpretation of the places in which it is hosted. The artist investigates the layering of stories and tales in a sort of excavation process that includes research and meetings, from which he draws the elements he creates his pieces with. Whether consisting of concealed and rediscovered frescoes, original and forgotten functions of places, removed stories, omitted people, destroyed and recovered materials, the elements that make up the artist’s work contribute in forming new points of view, new perspectives on a layered, dense, permeable, open world. Serapinas’ explorations often begin with the observation of a city, as in the case of Belgrade, and then move to the deeper investigation of a specific place, in a process of identification which moves from the general to the detail, during which individual and collective stories are involved. The artist’s new production Cast Iron Saber (2020) is the result of his analysis of the original function of the Belgrade City Museum, a former military academy. The encounter of archival images showing the fencing lessons held in the 20th century inside the premises and the discovery of a hidden storage room filled with radiators led to the formalization of a series of swords, incorporating the radiators as their material. The different elements of the past are thus merged together and constitute a new object, now revived and placed back in the place it belongs—as if the building itself had decided to wake up through a memory.