The starting document for the performance is the Ventotene Manifesto. This manifesto (original: Per un’Europa libera e unita. Progetto d’un manifesto, English: For a Free and United Europe. Project of a manifesto) is a programmatic script written by the italian anti-fascists Altiero Spinelli, Eugenio Colorni and Ernesto Rossi in 1941. It is one of the most important early programmatic drafts for the so-called „European integration“. All three were imprisoned together on the island of Ventotene from 1939 and secretly wrote the manifesto on cigarette paper. The document was smuggled out of the prison, reproduced and published as a leaflet in Rome.
Smoking Constitution is an attempt to get passers-by enthusiastic about the European idea that is just “going up in smoke”.