» Exhibitions Mad – Murate Art District

Lights to serve the night (2017) | Adrian Paci

RIVA Project 2021

“I imagined a landscape, a boat floating on the river, a presence that is, somehow, natural for a river. I wanted to add a gesture, a noisy fracture: a generator that nurtures strings of underwater fibre optic lights with its power; a bundle of optical fibres nestled in the mysterious, muddy depths of the Arno that try to bring light to the image of the river bottom.”

Lights to serve the night (2017) testifies to Adrian Paci’s long creative stay in Florence:
as a response to the invitation of the RIVA Project, the Albanian artist initially produced a performance along the river, then a video installation with the same name.
The floating skeleton of a boat trailing filaments of light that illuminate the surrounding environment recalls the performance experience that is poetically narrated in the video.
A paddler glides his small boat along the Arno; with slow, rhythmical movements, he also stirs the luminous wires plunged into the water of the river, searching for new lights a

“I imagined a landscape, a boat floating on the river, a presence that is, somehow, natural for a river. I wanted to add a gesture, a noisy fracture: a generator that nurtures strings of underwater fibre optic lights with its power; a bundle of optical fibres nestled in the mysterious, muddy depths of the Arno that try to bring light to the image of the river bottom.”

Lights to serve the night (2017) testifies to Adrian Paci’s long creative stay in Florence:
as a response to the invitation of the RIVA Project, the Albanian artist initially produced a performance along the river, then a video installation with the same name.
The floating skeleton of a boat trailing filaments of light that illuminate the surrounding environment recalls the performance experience that is poetically narrated in the video.
A paddler glides his small boat along the Arno; with slow, rhythmical movements, he also stirs the luminous wires plunged into the water of the river, searching for new lights and hidden meanings. The luminous trail illuminates the murky, mysterious bed of the Arno as if it were a poetic archaeological exploration of the river, revealing little and concealing much.
The silent rowing is broken by the noise of a generator that activates optical fibres; a noise that,
as in others of his works, is reminiscent of the generators that lit the houses in Albania, recreating a sort
of emotional soundscape.
“Lights to serve the night is an attempt to establish a dialogue between surfaces and depths, between light and dark; a dialogue ignited by man, who does not expect to resolve it, to reveal it, to bring everything
to knowledge.”
This work was produced by the RIVA Project and was exhibited for the first time at the Museo Novecento in the exhibit devoted to Paci, which also involved the Murate. It was later presented at the National Gallery of Arts in Tirana in 2019 for the first solo organised for Adrian Paci in his country before returning to Florence
on this occasion.

Lights to serve the night (2017) | Adrian Paci

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Arno on the Arno (2016) | Arno Minkkinen

RIVA Project 2021

The research of Finnish-American photographer Arno Minkkinen focused on the landscape marked by anthropogenic presence, in particular the relationship between the human presence and natural elements, which was investigated by Minkkinen by adding elements of surrealist irony, where the human body is the subject and object of perception, in analogy to what philosopher Maurice Merleau Ponty expressed. Working specifically on the self-portrait, Arno on the Arno (2016) takes on the features of a personal challenge: Arno versus Arno, as he himself likes to say, underlining his homonymy with the river. A “game of chess that you win and lose at the same time, whose final result can only be known ex post”.

Arno on the Arno (2016) | Arno Minkkinen

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Fishermen (2016) , Ponte Vecchio - Marangoni (2016) | Massimo Vitali

RIVA Project 2021

Massimo Vitali’s lens privileges crowded places, mostly the seashores brimming with people in bathing suits. The diptych commissioned by the RIVA Project (2016) is no exception: Vitali’s focus on the Arno yields images of two places distant from one another with a common denominator, the gathering of humans. The river is a place of aggregation, both for Fishermen, locals in a moment of relaxation, engaged in pleasant fishing competitions along the banks near the Cascine Park, and for Ponte Vecchio – Marangoni, with crowds of tourists lingering on the most famous bridge in the world. It is a frame that tells of an iconic landmark from an inner and improbable perspective, distant

from traditional iconography featuring the bridge and its goldsmith shops in the city landscape.

In collaboration with Fondazione Studio Marangoni

Massimo Vitali’s lens privileges crowded places, mostly the seashores brimming with people in bathing suits. The diptych commissioned by the RIVA Project (2016) is no exception: Vitali’s focus on the Arno yields images of two places distant from one another with a common denominator, the gathering of humans. The river is a place of aggregation, both for Fishermen, locals in a moment of relaxation, engaged in pleasant fishing competitions along the banks near the Cascine Park, and for Ponte Vecchio – Marangoni, with crowds of tourists lingering on the most famous bridge in the world. It is a frame that tells of an iconic landmark from an inner and improbable perspective, distant

from traditional iconography featuring the bridge and its goldsmith shops in the city landscape.

In collaboration with Fondazione Studio Marangoni

Fishermen (2016) , Ponte Vecchio - Marangoni (2016) | Massimo Vitali

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Arno flow, Arno bridge, Arno love, Arno flood, Arno restore (2016) | Jay Wolke

RIVA Project 2021

Instead of using traditional photography techniques, the American photographer Jay Wolke relied on a small portable high-resolution scanner to explore varied surfaces and plots, which he then assembled and post-produced in a kaleidoscopic synthesis. By inverting the relationship between micro and macro, the author conveyed his investigation of the small elements on an innovative and monumental format, which translated small details into large and long vertical banners. Wolke used a combinatorial system to hold together the various souls of the Arno River, ranging from postcards for sale on noted tourist bridges to lichens on the cement of the river banks, icons linked to the imagery and the history of the river, plants and flowers growing spontaneously along the banks. Five key words were chosen by the author to pinpoint the various subjects displayed in the five works: Arno flow, Arno bridge, Arno love, Arno flood, Arno restore (2016).

Arno flow, Arno bridge, Arno love, Arno flood, Arno restore (2016) | Jay Wolke

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Autumn Lights on the Arno (2016) | Bernard Fort

RIVA Project 2021

Autumn Lights on the Arno (2016) is an immersive sound installation conceived and created by the acclaimed French composer for the urban environment of the Le Murate Complex on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Florence flood. This sound portrait of the river develops along two separate registers that give life to the soundscape of the Arno: an acoustic dimension, figurative and realistic, in which faraway voices and chirping birds from the river banks emerge from the continuous and steady white noise of the city; and an acousmatic dimension, a poised image, discreet, and devoted to the chant of water. This work stemmed from a field recording workshop produced in partnership with Tempo Reale that involved young local sound artists.

Autumn Lights on the Arno (2016) | Bernard Fort

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I Guess the River Never Knew (2018) | Alisa Martynova

RIVA Project 2021

In I Guess the River Never Knew, the relationship with the river is represented by the physical barrier of one’s home, which sets the inhabitants away from their natural environment and all the same o ers an open window that, like a diaphragm, introjects the fluvial landscape as if it were a domestic dimension, making up for this distance.

I Guess the River Never Knew (2018) | Alisa Martynova

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Flow ( 2018) | Giulia Dari

RIVA Project 2021

A digital processing of old archive photos of the Town of Pontassieve linked to the 1966 flood gave rise to Flow, where past and present overlap in a space and time dimension: a careful survey led the photographer around the streets portrayed right after the flood, where she was confronted with places and viewpoints that are returned to the viewer through an alienating dialogue entrusting the dramatic 1966 flood to black and white images with inlays of present-day colour pictures.

Flow ( 2018) | Giulia Dari

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Adelmo (2018) | Alice Machado

RIVA Project 2021

Adelmo’s portrait stems from the desire to bring together the moments of a lifetime into a single image. This work is in fact made up of thousands of small photographs that tell of the places, the activities, the loved ones of Mister Adelmo, an inhabitant of the borough of San Francesco who intertwined his existence with the Sieve waterwa

Adelmo (2018) | Alice Machado

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The Third Bank of the River (2018) | Federica Gonnelli

RIVA Project 2021

The Third Bank of the River features a double exposure photograph, printed on organza and plunged into water. The outcome reveals the river seen as a symbol of a border – a theme addressed by the photographer in several instances – as well as an opportunity o ered by a new place to be experienced and shared, in which one can imagine and build poetic stories of waterways.

The Third Bank of the River (2018) | Federica Gonnelli

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Third Garden (2016), Stones Stories (2018) | Studio++

RIVA Project 2021

Third Garden (2016) is a park stretching over ten thousand square metres of land along the west bank of the Arno River. A green area that was finally returned to the city that can be explored by walking along the many trails drawn amidst the spontaneous vegetation; in memory of the ancient orti dei semplici (botanical gardens). The word “third” brings to mind Gilles Clément’s third landscape, which reminds us that spontaneous vegetation is an extraordinary reserve of biodiversity and evolutionary potential. The park, which can be seen here in an aerial photograph taken by Gabriele Galimberti, can be accessed from Piazza Poggi.

The Stones Stories (2018) site-specific installation stems from the encounters with the people living in the borough of San Francesco (Pelago) and their recollections of the Sieve River: in their imagery, as we hear from the interviews, the river has always been seen from within, in constant touch with water. That is why the new passage of the river fr

Third Garden (2016) is a park stretching over ten thousand square metres of land along the west bank of the Arno River. A green area that was finally returned to the city that can be explored by walking along the many trails drawn amidst the spontaneous vegetation; in memory of the ancient orti dei semplici (botanical gardens). The word “third” brings to mind Gilles Clément’s third landscape, which reminds us that spontaneous vegetation is an extraordinary reserve of biodiversity and evolutionary potential. The park, which can be seen here in an aerial photograph taken by Gabriele Galimberti, can be accessed from Piazza Poggi.

The Stones Stories (2018) site-specific installation stems from the encounters with the people living in the borough of San Francesco (Pelago) and their recollections of the Sieve River: in their imagery, as we hear from the interviews, the river has always been seen from within, in constant touch with water. That is why the new passage of the river from shore to shore reconnects two communities and makes it possible to experience the river from the centre of its course, possibly lingering on one of the stones surrounded by water.

Third Garden (2016), Stones Stories (2018) | Studio++

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Confluent Encounters (2018) | Giuseppe Toscano

RIVA Project 2021

Confluent Encounters (2018) is an original project conceived in partnership with Fondazione Studio Marangoni. Toscano’s interest focused on the relationship between the fluvial and urban landscapes in the area of San Francesco (Pelago) and Pontassieve, where the Sieve and Arno waterways merge and anonymous anthropogenic details distinguish the scenery. The images, often captured vertically, result in a core sampling of the stratification of the territory and, once hung from the walls of the buildings of the Le Murate Complex, bring to mind the multifaceted relationship between architecture and nature.

Confluent Encounters (2018) | Giuseppe Toscano

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Path of awareness (2018) | Katrinem

RIVA Project 2021

Path of awareness (2018) was conceived by Berlin artist Katrinem during an artistic residency in Montelupo Fiorentino in collaboration with Tempo Reale. It is a path of mindfulness that explores the individual and personal experience of walking in an open space, paying special attention to the interaction between the sound event connected with the presence of our body (footsteps) and the soundscape (the sound of the surrounding environment): a soundtrack stroll on the interaction between human presence and the landscape around the river. Katrinem’s stroll, measuring the surrounding environment through the presence and the sound of her footsteps, is proposed here in the excerpt shot in the hard regime prison, which was a place of civilian su ering and deprivation of freedom of thought and movement during the years of the antifascist Resistance fight.

Path of awareness (2018) | Katrinem

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40,000 nails (2018) | Paolo Masi

RIVA Project 2021

40,000 nails (2018) permanently marks the second cell on the third floor of the Le Murate Complex after the long work carried out on commission by the RIVA Project for the QUI solo show (2018). The wall, meant as a geographical map of a iction, took shape gradually, as the work progressed and as the wall reacted, collapsing under the blows of the hammer and the wounds caused by the nails. In this place of seclusion and, at a later stage, of confinement, Masi wanted to reproduce the forced bond of the persons living in those cells, the prisoners of those hostile walls that were anyway the only element of the outer world the convicts could deal with. Hence the contraposition with the river, which is instead in constant flow, whose waters never inhabit the same place.

40,000 nails (2018) | Paolo Masi

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Traces on the Territory (2018) | Paolo Masi

RIVA Project 2021

Traces on the Territory includes two series of Polaroid photographs, taken during the author’s artist residency at MAD for the RIVA Project in 2018.
On display here is a significant selection of both cycles, devoted to the Le Murate Complex and the Arno River, respectively. These works – one in colour and one in black and white – unite the two places not only from a conceptual but also from a stylistic point of view.

The Polaroid series, which Masi has produced since the seventies, testify to the artist’s obsessive attention to the sign. In the close-ups, the gaze dissolves the context, focusing solely on the traces, be it human or natural prints, crystallised by the photograph that relays ciphered tales, iconic and precious sequences that embody the deep folds of these places.

Traces on the Territory includes two series of Polaroid photographs, taken during the author’s artist residency at MAD for the RIVA Project in 2018.
On display here is a significant selection of both cycles, devoted to the Le Murate Complex and the Arno River, respectively. These works – one in colour and one in black and white – unite the two places not only from a conceptual but also from a stylistic point of view.

The Polaroid series, which Masi has produced since the seventies, testify to the artist’s obsessive attention to the sign. In the close-ups, the gaze dissolves the context, focusing solely on the traces, be it human or natural prints, crystallised by the photograph that relays ciphered tales, iconic and precious sequences that embody the deep folds of these places.

Past beyond time (2019) | Zhang Xiang

RIVA Project 2021

Past beyond time (2019) features a surreal landscape: objects crystallised in the mud, in memory of the great flood of Florence in 1966, become an unusual, yet familiar, stage for a post-apocalyptic rebirth. This timeless landscape created by the Chinese artist during a residency at MAD evokes the spirit and behaviour of a community on the occasion of dramatic catastrophic events, which are followed by a rebirth, when life resumes its habits and people are once again able to create and produce. This work was conceived before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and today can be re-read as a sign of hope toward a new rebirth.

This work was selected among the creations produced during the China Project artist residencies, in the framework of cultural exchanges held by MAD between Italy and China, in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts of Sichuan and Zhong Art International.

Past beyond time (2019) features a surreal landscape: objects crystallised in the mud, in memory of the great flood of Florence in 1966, become an unusual, yet familiar, stage for a post-apocalyptic rebirth. This timeless landscape created by the Chinese artist during a residency at MAD evokes the spirit and behaviour of a community on the occasion of dramatic catastrophic events, which are followed by a rebirth, when life resumes its habits and people are once again able to create and produce. This work was conceived before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and today can be re-read as a sign of hope toward a new rebirth.

This work was selected among the creations produced during the China Project artist residencies, in the framework of cultural exchanges held by MAD between Italy and China, in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts of Sichuan and Zhong Art International.

Past beyond time (2019) | Zhang Xiang

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Vivente (2016) | Francesco Pellegrino

RIVA Project 2021

Living (2016) was commissioned following the production award for young artists launched by MAD in the framework of the RIVA Project. The award was assigned to composer Francesco Pellegrino on the 50th anniversary of the 1966 flood. His multimedia installation conveys an original soundscape of the Arno River, where sound and visual images blend to create an immersive and contemplative space. The installation consists of hanging bamboo canes of varying lengths; each cane is played either like an aerophone (via a small engine that blows in air) or like a drum (vibrated mechanically), creating an aesthetic visual and acoustic environment. The length and arrangement of the canes, which play according to a random algorithm designed by the artist, evoke di erent paths and experiences and an indefinite and potentially infinite subjective fruition time.

Vivente (2016) | Francesco Pellegrino

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The Days of the Flood (2016) | Fotoromanzo Italiano

RIVA Project 2021

The Days of the Flood (2016) gathers the results of a workshop focusing on the Arno River that involved students and young artists under-35 active in Tuscany. The participants worked as a real editorial board, initially drawing up and then producing a photo story about the river on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1966 flood. The choice of this form of sequential storytelling, pop and démodé, uses photographs to narrate a momentous event in the history of Florence in an ironic and modern fashion.

The Days of the Flood (2016) | Fotoromanzo Italiano

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Suspended (2018/2019) | Edoardo Delille e Paolo Woods

RIVA Project

In the photographic project Suspended (2018/2019), the inhabitants of San Francesco (Pelago) and Pontassieve walking near the river were invited to perform an unusual action. They were asked to jump on a trampoline specifically brought by the authors, and made a gesture that, with no manipulation or photomontage, allowed the photographers to portray them with the Sieve River in the background. The photographs taken by the authors thus relayed a perspective in which the locals, suspended in the air, are as close to as superimposed over the river, visually reconstructing a man/water relationship that goes beyond simply swimming in the river or posing in front of it.

The choice, shared with locals, to exhibit the monumental works produced by Delille and Woods for the RIVA Project on the façades of the buildings of the Le Murate Complex, including the one that houses MAD, was led by the desire to recall the strong bond between the Complex and the Arno River, since the original mona

In the photographic project Suspended (2018/2019), the inhabitants of San Francesco (Pelago) and Pontassieve walking near the river were invited to perform an unusual action. They were asked to jump on a trampoline specifically brought by the authors, and made a gesture that, with no manipulation or photomontage, allowed the photographers to portray them with the Sieve River in the background. The photographs taken by the authors thus relayed a perspective in which the locals, suspended in the air, are as close to as superimposed over the river, visually reconstructing a man/water relationship that goes beyond simply swimming in the river or posing in front of it.

The choice, shared with locals, to exhibit the monumental works produced by Delille and Woods for the RIVA Project on the façades of the buildings of the Le Murate Complex, including the one that houses MAD, was led by the desire to recall the strong bond between the Complex and the Arno River, since the original monastery was located right on the river banks, on the present Ponte alle Grazie bridge. The decision was made to enhance their project in a public framework, thinking also of the symbolic suggestion inspired by the context: Suspended and free, the protagonists stand out of the natural elements represented by water and air, and are displayed in a monumental dimension in a place that was originally conceived as a prison and that was eventually returned to the community.

Suspended (2018/2019) | Edoardo Delille e Paolo Woods

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Confluent Encounters (2018)| Martino Marangoni, Davide Virdis, Giuseppe Toscano

Riva Project 2021

Confluent Encounters (2018) is an original project conceived in partnership with Fondazione Studio Marangoni. Three professional photographers, entrusted with surveying the area of San Francesco (Pelago) and Pontassieve, focused on the landscape surrounding the waterways, in particular on the relationship between the river and human presence. A landscape where poetic glimpses – for instance, the point of confluence of the Sieve and Arno rivers – alternate with anthropized suburban snapshots, like the abandoned cement factory, vegetable gardens cultivated by locals, spontaneous bramble bushes, the grey viaduct covered with gra ti. The photographs taken by Marangoni, on the right, and Virdis, on the left, are displayed inside the Ketty La Rocca Hall, while the series of images taken by Toscano hang from the walls of the inner courtyard of the Le Murate complex. Some of these works were also exhibited in the towns of Pelago and Pontassieve and in the city of Florence using the spac

Confluent Encounters (2018) is an original project conceived in partnership with Fondazione Studio Marangoni. Three professional photographers, entrusted with surveying the area of San Francesco (Pelago) and Pontassieve, focused on the landscape surrounding the waterways, in particular on the relationship between the river and human presence. A landscape where poetic glimpses – for instance, the point of confluence of the Sieve and Arno rivers – alternate with anthropized suburban snapshots, like the abandoned cement factory, vegetable gardens cultivated by locals, spontaneous bramble bushes, the grey viaduct covered with gra ti. The photographs taken by Marangoni, on the right, and Virdis, on the left, are displayed inside the Ketty La Rocca Hall, while the series of images taken by Toscano hang from the walls of the inner courtyard of the Le Murate complex. Some of these works were also exhibited in the towns of Pelago and Pontassieve and in the city of Florence using the spaces reserved to public billposting, thus displaying images depicting the fluvial landscape of the Florentine metropolitan area in the urban context

Confluent Encounters (2018)| Martino Marangoni, Davide Virdis, Giuseppe Toscano

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Rivers (2018) | Yuval Avital

RIVA Project 2021

In the Rivers (2018) cycle, two rivers intertwine in a sound continuum: on the one hand, the sounds from the river environment, recorded and electronically processed by Israeli composer Yuval Avital with the Arno soundscape, giving rise to an original composition reproduced here; on the other hand, a human river created by voices overlapping with animal noises, breaths, and fragments of tales whispered in di erent languages by the Con-Fusion Choir, invited to Montelupo by Yuval Avital in collaboration with Tempo Reale on commission by the RIVA Project 2018. The choir’s performance, directed by Benedetta Manfriani, intertwined in an intense and vibrant way with the electronic composition, thus creating a new flow. The final result was the union of ancillary elements (local/universal, human/animal, acoustic/digital, memory/present) in the pursuit of an empathic point of convergence between work and audience.

Rivers represents both a metaphor and a concrete sound action, in which

In the Rivers (2018) cycle, two rivers intertwine in a sound continuum: on the one hand, the sounds from the river environment, recorded and electronically processed by Israeli composer Yuval Avital with the Arno soundscape, giving rise to an original composition reproduced here; on the other hand, a human river created by voices overlapping with animal noises, breaths, and fragments of tales whispered in di erent languages by the Con-Fusion Choir, invited to Montelupo by Yuval Avital in collaboration with Tempo Reale on commission by the RIVA Project 2018. The choir’s performance, directed by Benedetta Manfriani, intertwined in an intense and vibrant way with the electronic composition, thus creating a new flow. The final result was the union of ancillary elements (local/universal, human/animal, acoustic/digital, memory/present) in the pursuit of an empathic point of convergence between work and audience.

Rivers represents both a metaphor and a concrete sound action, in which Voice, Gesture, and recorded Material intertwine in a space and sensorial experience, prompting the audience to take an active part, searching for an intimate and human encounter with the river.

In collaboration with Tempo Reale.

Rivers (2018) | Yuval Avital

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Arno Atlas (2013-2016), Confluences (2018) | Radio Papesse

RIVA Project 2021

Arno Atlas (2013-2016) is a cycle of six audio documentaries devoted to the Arno River; a map of its emotional geography. A sound narrative project leaving space to the voice of the river and the city crossed by it, Florence, rich with stories linked to the Arno; sound design by Giulio Aldinucci. As shown in the map, the six tales can also be listened to in some specific spots along the river, which have a specific meaning for the tale itself.

Confluences (2018) is a series of three audio documentaries devoted to Montelupo genius loci, beginning with memories of the Arno and Pesa waterways. Relying on voices, testimonies and field recordings, Confluences brings together a heterogenous portrait of the Montelupo Fiorentino ecosystem, telling of its history connected with ceramic production under the imposing and disturbing presence of the Villa Medicea Ambrogiana, a former psychiatric hospital.

Arno Atlas (2013-2016) is a cycle of six audio documentaries devoted to the Arno River; a map of its emotional geography. A sound narrative project leaving space to the voice of the river and the city crossed by it, Florence, rich with stories linked to the Arno; sound design by Giulio Aldinucci. As shown in the map, the six tales can also be listened to in some specific spots along the river, which have a specific meaning for the tale itself.

Confluences (2018) is a series of three audio documentaries devoted to Montelupo genius loci, beginning with memories of the Arno and Pesa waterways. Relying on voices, testimonies and field recordings, Confluences brings together a heterogenous portrait of the Montelupo Fiorentino ecosystem, telling of its history connected with ceramic production under the imposing and disturbing presence of the Villa Medicea Ambrogiana, a former psychiatric hospital.

Arno Atlas (2013-2016), Confluences (2018) | Radio Papesse

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Angelica Pesarini

Professor of Sociology at New York University in Florence

Angelica Pesarini is Professor of Sociology at New York University in Florence where she teaches “Black Italia”, a course dedicated to the analysis of the intersections of race, gender and citizenship in Italy. She holds a Ph.d. in Sociology and Gender Studies in England and worked as a professor of Gender, Race and Sexuality at Lancaster University before returning to Italy in 2017. Pesarini’s research focuses on the performativity of race in colonial and post-colonial Italy and the racialisation of contemporary Italian political discourse. Pesarini has previously investigated the relationships between gender identity and economic activities in some Roma communities living in Rome, analyzing risk strategies, survival and opportunity in the context of male child prostitution in Rome. She has published several academic essays and participated in various collective publications.

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OSTINATO

Black Archive Alliance

Volum III

Launched in 2018 Black Archive Alliance is a research and training project that aims to highlight investigations rooted in documents that reflect the realities and histories of African populations, and of the African diaspora and their representation in public and private archives and collections in the Italian context.

The first edition created a virtual map of this archival presence in the city of Florence with a catalog that aims to support future research and provide alternative perspectives. The second edition was also carried out in Florence by international students from various disciplines and institutions, tutored by a group of local researchers and scholars. The third edition, presented as part of BHMF 2021 in this exhibition, was born from a collaboration between five Afro- descendant researchers working in different fields and the artists of the first edition of YGBI Research Residency. Working in pairs, through an experimental approach based on dialogue and exchange, th

Launched in 2018 Black Archive Alliance is a research and training project that aims to highlight investigations rooted in documents that reflect the realities and histories of African populations, and of the African diaspora and their representation in public and private archives and collections in the Italian context.

The first edition created a virtual map of this archival presence in the city of Florence with a catalog that aims to support future research and provide alternative perspectives. The second edition was also carried out in Florence by international students from various disciplines and institutions, tutored by a group of local researchers and scholars. The third edition, presented as part of BHMF 2021 in this exhibition, was born from a collaboration between five Afro- descendant researchers working in different fields and the artists of the first edition of YGBI Research Residency. Working in pairs, through an experimental approach based on dialogue and exchange, they have explored tangible and intangible archives rooted in Italy. Providing contextualization and a wider reflection on the art works produced by the YGBI members, the project is intended to reflect on alternative ways of activating and presenting archive-based research, beyond the academic realm.

The full texts produced by the researchers will be featured in the latest Archive Journal publication, developed in collaboration with Archive Books and launched 24 February at 5pm. As part of this exhibition opening, we are presenting our collaboration with Postcolonial Italy, which introduces their mapping project inserted within our space and exhibition.

Curated by BHMF with Alessandra Ferrini
In collaboration with Archive Books, Museo MA*GA and Villa Romana
MAD Murate Art District _Emeroteca
Researchers: Simao Amista, Jessica Sartiani, Angelica Pesarini, Jordan Anderson, Patrick Joel Tatcheda Yonkeu

Black Archive Alliance

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Janine Gaëlle Dieudji

co-founder and director Black History Month Florence

Janine Gaëlle Dieudji is a bi-national French and Cameroonian graduate of Culture and International Relations from Lyon 3 University in France. She also holds a Master Degree in Political Science from Paris 2 Panthéon Assas University.

She’s been living in Florence, Italy, for the past six years, a city she has since fallen in love with. This is how Florence became home to her and the place where she started to build her career as an art professional. She considers herself as a ‘multilocal’ by believing that we belong to all the places we have lived in. Home is where the mind can create and feel rested at the same time. This is what the life journey is made for, exploring to become the person we decide to be.

Janine Gaëlle Dieudji is a bi-national French and Cameroonian graduate of Culture and International Relations from Lyon 3 University in France. She also holds a Master Degree in Political Science from Paris 2 Panthéon Assas University.

She’s been living in Florence, Italy, for the past six years, a city she has since fallen in love with. This is how Florence became home to her and the place where she started to build her career as an art professional. She considers herself as a ‘multilocal’ by believing that we belong to all the places we have lived in. Home is where the mind can create and feel rested at the same time. This is what the life journey is made for, exploring to become the person we decide to be.

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Justin Randolph Thompson

co-founder and director Black History Month Florence

Justin Randolph Thompson is a new media artist, cultural facilitator and educator born in Peekskill, NY in ’79. Living between Italy and the US since 1999, Thompson is Co-Founder and Director of Black History Month Florence, a multi-faceted exploration of African and African Diasporic cultures in the context of Italy founded in 2016.
Thompson is a recipient of a Louise Comfort Tiffany Award, a Franklin Furnace Fund Award, a Visual Artist Grant from the Fundacion Marcelino Botin, two Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants, A Jerome Fellowship from Franconia Sculpture Park and an Emerging Artist Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park. His life and work seek to deepen the discussions around socio-cultural stratification and hierarchical organization by employing fleeting temporary communities as monuments and fostering projects that connect academic discourse social activism and DIY networking strategies in annual and biennial gathering, sharing and gestures of collectivity.

Justin Randolph Thompson is a new media artist, cultural facilitator and educator born in Peekskill, NY in ’79. Living between Italy and the US since 1999, Thompson is Co-Founder and Director of Black History Month Florence, a multi-faceted exploration of African and African Diasporic cultures in the context of Italy founded in 2016.
Thompson is a recipient of a Louise Comfort Tiffany Award, a Franklin Furnace Fund Award, a Visual Artist Grant from the Fundacion Marcelino Botin, two Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants, A Jerome Fellowship from Franconia Sculpture Park and an Emerging Artist Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park. His life and work seek to deepen the discussions around socio-cultural stratification and hierarchical organization by employing fleeting temporary communities as monuments and fostering projects that connect academic discourse social activism and DIY networking strategies in annual and biennial gathering, sharing and gestures of collectivity.

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Kiluanji Kia Henda

Luanda-Angola, 1979, Kiluanji Kia Henda is an autodidact which a profound springboard into this realm comes from growing up in a household of photography enthusiasts. His conceptual edge was sharpened by immersing himself into music, avant-garde theater and collaborating with a collective of emerging artists in Luanda ́s art scene. Kia Henda participated in several residency programs in cities such as Venice, Cape Town, Paris, Amman and Sharjah, New York and Arles.

Kia Henda´s selected solo exhibitions includes Something Happen on the Way to Heaven, at Museo di Arte di Nuoro (2020), The Isle of Venus at Museum of Leuven in Leuven (2020), A City Called Mirage at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York (2017), In the Days of a Dark Safari at Galeria Filomena Soares in Lisbon and Goodman Gallery in Cape Town (2017) and Self-Portrait As A White Man at Galleria Fonti in Naples (2010).

Kia Henda has participated in group exhibitions at numerous institutions,

Luanda-Angola, 1979, Kiluanji Kia Henda is an autodidact which a profound springboard into this realm comes from growing up in a household of photography enthusiasts. His conceptual edge was sharpened by immersing himself into music, avant-garde theater and collaborating with a collective of emerging artists in Luanda ́s art scene. Kia Henda participated in several residency programs in cities such as Venice, Cape Town, Paris, Amman and Sharjah, New York and Arles.

Kia Henda´s selected solo exhibitions includes Something Happen on the Way to Heaven, at Museo di Arte di Nuoro (2020), The Isle of Venus at Museum of Leuven in Leuven (2020), A City Called Mirage at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York (2017), In the Days of a Dark Safari at Galeria Filomena Soares in Lisbon and Goodman Gallery in Cape Town (2017) and Self-Portrait As A White Man at Galleria Fonti in Naples (2010).

Kia Henda has participated in group exhibitions at numerous institutions, amongst which Barbican Art Center in Lonodon (2020), Migros Museum in Zurich (2020), Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2020), Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town (2019), Tate Modern in London (2019), MAAT in Lisbon (2018), the National Museum of African Art – Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. (2015) and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (2015).

His work was shown at the Gwangju Biennale (2018), Bergen Assembly (2013), São Paulo Biennale (2010), Venice Biennale (2007) and the Luanda Triennale (2007). In 2017, Kia Henda received the Frieze Artist Award. He presented his work The Fortress in the Somerset House courtyard (London) in 2019. The artist won Angola’s National Culture and Arts Award in 2012. His work can be found in public collections, including Tate Modern (London), the Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw), Centre George Pompidou (Paris), Pérez Art Museum (Miami) and Coleção de Arte Moderna Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon).

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The isle of Venus | Kiluanji Kia Henda A cura di BHMF 2021

Isle of Venus is a meditation on the socio-psycho and self imposed short sightedness produced by the transformation of cities into theme based museum sites, whether anchored in the romanticism of the Renaissance or in the gritty appeal of the medieval.

Isle of Venus is a site specific installation by Kiluanji Kia Henda conceptualized during the artists sojourn in Florence as a reflection on the city, its history and its relationship to transitory people whether tourists or other seemingly impermanent residents.

Island mentality refers to the notion that isolation and lack of consideration for all beyond one’s borders produces a sense of superiority that is insular in its desensitization. This notion is not reserved for those geographically cut off from others but spills over onto those societies so habitually engaged in establishing the terms, norms, canons, borders and values that they thrive on, that they rarely take notice of the labor intensively constructed fiction or the painstakingly preserved facade.

Isle of Venus is a meditation on the socio-psycho and self imposed short sightedness produced by the transformation of cities into theme based museum sites, whether anchored in the romanticism of the Renaissance or in the gr

Isle of Venus is a site specific installation by Kiluanji Kia Henda conceptualized during the artists sojourn in Florence as a reflection on the city, its history and its relationship to transitory people whether tourists or other seemingly impermanent residents.

Island mentality refers to the notion that isolation and lack of consideration for all beyond one’s borders produces a sense of superiority that is insular in its desensitization. This notion is not reserved for those geographically cut off from others but spills over onto those societies so habitually engaged in establishing the terms, norms, canons, borders and values that they thrive on, that they rarely take notice of the labor intensively constructed fiction or the painstakingly preserved facade.

Isle of Venus is a meditation on the socio-psycho and self imposed short sightedness produced by the transformation of cities into theme based museum sites, whether anchored in the romanticism of the Renaissance or in the gritty appeal of the medieval. Part and parcel of this veneer is the distancing of all things unaligned with, or that effectively, evoke the social underpinnings of this consistent barrage.

Curated by BHMF in collaboration with MAD Murate Art District;
MAD Murate Art District, Sala Anna Banti 03/02-28/02/2021
Black History Month Florence.VI Edizione. OSTINATO

The isle of Venus | Kiluanji Kia Henda A cura di BHMF 2021

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Victor Fotso Nyie

Artist

Victor Fotso Nyie was born in 1990 in Douala, Cameroon and lives and works in Faenza. In 2018 he attended the Biennium of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. He attended the Istituito Tecnico Superiore Tonito Emiliani / Diploma of Superior Technician for the design and prototyping of ceramic products, Faenza, IT in 2015. His artistic research leads him to explore human variety and beauty, without forgetting a spiritual dimension. He creates works that recall his homeland, Africa, which merge with others that metaphorically describe the globalized world in which we live. He has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions including The Armory show, New York city 2020, Stand P420 gallery,(2020), III Biennale d’Arte don Franco Patruno, curated by Gianni Ceroli, Museo MAGI ‘900, Pieve di Cento (BO) (2020).To be going to, curated by Francesca Bertazzoni & Davide Ferri, P420, (2019) In 2020 he participated in the project Research Residency for BHMF, OCAD

Victor Fotso Nyie was born in 1990 in Douala, Cameroon and lives and works in Faenza. In 2018 he attended the Biennium of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. He attended the Istituito Tecnico Superiore Tonito Emiliani / Diploma of Superior Technician for the design and prototyping of ceramic products, Faenza, IT in 2015. His artistic research leads him to explore human variety and beauty, without forgetting a spiritual dimension. He creates works that recall his homeland, Africa, which merge with others that metaphorically describe the globalized world in which we live. He has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions including The Armory show, New York city 2020, Stand P420 gallery,(2020), III Biennale d’Arte don Franco Patruno, curated by Gianni Ceroli, Museo MAGI ‘900, Pieve di Cento (BO) (2020).To be going to, curated by Francesca Bertazzoni & Davide Ferri, P420, (2019) In 2020 he participated in the project Research Residency for BHMF, OCAD University, (Florence). Winner of various awards including the Roberto Daolio Prize, 2018 the III Art Biennale Don Franco Patruno, Museo MAGI ‘900, Pieve di Cento (BO), (2019). His next exhibitions include Museo MAGI ‘900, Pieve di Cento (BO), IT (only) (2020) and the Biennale del Mediterraneo, Republic of San Marino (2020).

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Francis Offman

Artist

Francis Offman (b. 1987, Butare) lives and works in Bologna.
In 2021, Offman took part in a workshop project for Valentino’s Autumn/Winter Haute Couture Show 2021-22.
2022 group shows include: Expressions. The Epilogue, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Italy; YGI-Group show, United States; The 3 ecologies, MACTE, Italy; The Tending of the Otherwise, Italy as well as the second iteration of Throw the Stone and Hide your Hand at the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris, France. In 2021, Offman had solo exhibitions at P420 Gallery, Italy; Baleno International, Italy; Herald St | Museum St, United Kingdom and MA*GA Museum, Italy. He also had a two-person show with Christian Offman at The Garage Lab, Italy. Previous group exhibitions include The Geological Viens, Palazzo D’Accursio, Italy; Painting in Person, Castello di Rivoli Museum, Italy; Italy at Frieze, Italian Embassy, United Kingdom; MEDITERRANEA 19 Young Artists Biennale: School of Waters, Republic of San Marino; P

Francis Offman (b. 1987, Butare) lives and works in Bologna.
In 2021, Offman took part in a workshop project for Valentino’s Autumn/Winter Haute Couture Show 2021-22.
2022 group shows include: Expressions. The Epilogue, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Italy; YGI-Group show, United States; The 3 ecologies, MACTE, Italy; The Tending of the Otherwise, Italy as well as the second iteration of Throw the Stone and Hide your Hand at the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris, France. In 2021, Offman had solo exhibitions at P420 Gallery, Italy; Baleno International, Italy; Herald St | Museum St, United Kingdom and MA*GA Museum, Italy. He also had a two-person show with Christian Offman at The Garage Lab, Italy. Previous group exhibitions include The Geological Viens, Palazzo D’Accursio, Italy; Painting in Person, Castello di Rivoli Museum, Italy; Italy at Frieze, Italian Embassy, United Kingdom; MEDITERRANEA 19 Young Artists Biennale: School of Waters, Republic of San Marino; Painting Stone, Villa Lontana, Italy; Throw the Stone and Hide your Hand, Murate Art District, Italy (2021); Premio Combat Prize 2020, Giovanni Fattori Civic Museum, Italy; Premio Zucchelli 2019, Zucchelli Foundation, Italy (2020); Open Tour 2019, Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna, Italy; Rundgang 2019, Art Academy, Germany, Art White Night, Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna, Italy (2019); Decoration between history, nature and poetry, Zucchelli Foundation, Italy; Open Tour, Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna, Italy; Rambling rides, distractions from a destination, P420, Italy; Art white Night, Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna, Italy; Scrap-Collective, Monumental Complex of Baraccano, Italy; Monsters-phenomena, Monumental Complex of Baraccano, Italy (2018).
Awards received include: Agitu Ideo Gudeta Fellowship – Performance Act Award (2021); Emilia-Romagna Region Award in support and dissemination of Contemporary Art; 9th edition of the Francesco Fabbri Award for Contemporary Arts (finalist); Premio Combat Prize (honourable mention) (2020); Eighth edition of the Francesco Fabbri Award for Contemporary Arts; Zucchelli Prize Scholarship; Tree Time workshop with Massimo Bartolini; Contemporary Minds Prize (finalist) (2019); ArtUp Collectibles Award; Switch The Rules, curated by the Elica and the Ermanno Casoli Foundation (finalist) (2018).

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Emmanuel Yoro

Visual artist

Emmanuel Yoro is an Italian visual artist of Ivorian origin working between Vicenza and Milan. Adopting an artistic practice that embraces collage, design, fashion, graphics and photography, he breaks down into images the questions of the multiple facets of his cultural identity and different nuances of queerness.

An Afro-diasporic sensibility and a raw and monochromatic aesthetic characterize his research and recent artistic production, always in the attempt of a wider redefinition of the self that dwells in the symposium between past and present, between memory and imagination.

Emmanuel Yoro is an Italian visual artist of Ivorian origin working between Vicenza and Milan. Adopting an artistic practice that embraces collage, design, fashion, graphics and photography, he breaks down into images the questions of the multiple facets of his cultural identity and different nuances of queerness.

An Afro-diasporic sensibility and a raw and monochromatic aesthetic characterize his research and recent artistic production, always in the attempt of a wider redefinition of the self that dwells in the symposium between past and present, between memory and imagination.

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Raziel Perin

Artist

Raziel Perin was born in 1992 in the Dominican Republic. He received a BFA in Visual Arts at Naba Milano. Drawing upon his personal experience, mental associations and cultural references, Raziel Perin creates mysterious, unexpected and direct works of art that recall precise moments of clarity and dense memories that evoke the complexity of the process of reconciliation of the diasporic identity freed from Western stereotypes. Perin was born in the hinterland of the Dominican Republic, where he lived until the age of four. In 1996 he moved to Northern Italy with his mother. His artistic production takes shape between two very distant realities, rooted in the need to be accepted as “the Other” and at the same time feeling the duty to suppress the sensitive part of his personal history, which constantly re-emerges. The introspection and reconnection with the echoes of those ancestral bonds that seemed to have been severed in this process of ‘whitening’ are the re

Raziel Perin was born in 1992 in the Dominican Republic. He received a BFA in Visual Arts at Naba Milano. Drawing upon his personal experience, mental associations and cultural references, Raziel Perin creates mysterious, unexpected and direct works of art that recall precise moments of clarity and dense memories that evoke the complexity of the process of reconciliation of the diasporic identity freed from Western stereotypes. Perin was born in the hinterland of the Dominican Republic, where he lived until the age of four. In 1996 he moved to Northern Italy with his mother. His artistic production takes shape between two very distant realities, rooted in the need to be accepted as “the Other” and at the same time feeling the duty to suppress the sensitive part of his personal history, which constantly re-emerges. The introspection and reconnection with the echoes of those ancestral bonds that seemed to have been severed in this process of ‘whitening’ are the result and are channeled into drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations that unite and synthesize a series of recurring elements. His body of work conveys a compelling visual metaphor of the layers of personal memory and cultural history that inform and intensify his experience of the present.

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Binta Diaw

Visual artist

Binta Diaw born in1995 is a Senegalese-Italian visual artist based in Milan, Italy.

Her research is aimed at the creation of installations of various dimensions and works commenting social phenomena like migration and immigration, anthropology as well as her body in relationship with nature and notions of identity. Defying the Western gaze through a subverted reality, her practice questions perceptions of Italianness and Africanness in relation to her own cultural heritage and upbringing.

Embracing visual art with a strongly intersectional, afro-diasporic and feminist methodology based on a physical, personal experience, she is ultimately able to explore the multiple layers of her blackness, her self as a social body and her position as a black woman in a Western context. She studied Fine Arts at the Academy of fine arts of Brera in Milan and obtained a MA at ESAD Grenoble-Valence, in France. In 2018 she moved to Germany for an internship at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin. In 2020 she de

Binta Diaw born in1995 is a Senegalese-Italian visual artist based in Milan, Italy.

Her research is aimed at the creation of installations of various dimensions and works commenting social phenomena like migration and immigration, anthropology as well as her body in relationship with nature and notions of identity. Defying the Western gaze through a subverted reality, her practice questions perceptions of Italianness and Africanness in relation to her own cultural heritage and upbringing.

Embracing visual art with a strongly intersectional, afro-diasporic and feminist methodology based on a physical, personal experience, she is ultimately able to explore the multiple layers of her blackness, her self as a social body and her position as a black woman in a Western context. She studied Fine Arts at the Academy of fine arts of Brera in Milan and obtained a MA at ESAD Grenoble-Valence, in France. In 2018 she moved to Germany for an internship at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin. In 2020 she debuted with her first solo show at Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio in Milan.

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Gettare il Sasso e nascondere la mano | BHMF 2021

The works form an invitation towards a collective capacity for developing strategies of resistance but also a critique in relation to the shortsightedness of self-aggrandizing individualism.

Gettare il sasso e nascondere la mano is a collective exhibition dedicated to the artists of the first edition of the YGBI Research Residency developed in collaboration with OCAD and The Student Hotel in February 2020 under the mentorship of Andrea Fatona and Leaf Jerlefia. The residence reflected on spaces of non-performativity, collectivity and the notion of diaspora. Bringing together five Afro-descendant artists under 35 and residing in Italy, the resulting exhibition designed for the cells of Murate Art District embraces a series of narratives that link spirituality to education and colonial history and its materiality to historical activism.

The exhibition is rooted in an experimental approach to the collective sharing of space.

The phrase Gettare il sasso e nascondere la mano (throwing a stone and hiding the hand) was voiced by Cécile Kyenge as a description of a futile attempt at not being held accountable for the enactment of blatant and intentional violence. Her�

Gettare il sasso e nascondere la mano is a collective exhibition dedicated to the artists of the first edition of the YGBI Research Residency developed in collaboration with OCAD and The Student Hotel in February 2020 under the mentorship of Andrea Fatona and Leaf Jerlefia. The residence reflected on spaces of non-performativity, collectivity and the notion of diaspora. Bringing together five Afro-descendant artists under 35 and residing in Italy, the resulting exhibition designed for the cells of Murate Art District embraces a series of narratives that link spirituality to education and colonial history and its materiality to historical activism.

The exhibition is rooted in an experimental approach to the collective sharing of space.

The phrase Gettare il sasso e nascondere la mano (throwing a stone and hiding the hand) was voiced by Cécile Kyenge as a description of a futile attempt at not being held accountable for the enactment of blatant and intentional violence. Her’s was a response to the hands hidden in plain sight responsible for social damage and the sustenance of fractured values. This exhibition engages the socio-spiritual obstinacy that recognizes the obvious yet is cognizant of each of us as keepers of under-acknowledged agency.

The works form an invitation towards a collective capacity for developing strategies of resistance but also a critique in relation to the shortsightedness of self-aggrandizing individualism. The project comes in the wake of a series of solo exhibitions that were held at the MAGA Museum within the research project The Recovery Plan that was put on pause by the second phase of lockdowns in Fall of 2020 which is accompanied by five monographic online volumes each on dedicated to one of the artists involved.

Curated by Black History Month Florence
In collaboration with Murate Art District
MAD Murate Art District, celle, piano 1

Gettare il Sasso e nascondere la mano | BHMF 2021

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Simao Amista

Anthropologist and doctor

Simao Amista is an anthropologist and doctor of Italian-Afro-Brazilian descent. A scholar of African and Afro-descendent religions and spiritual philosophies, he has been working for years in the field of hospitality and education.

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OSTINATO

Patrick Joël Tatcheda Yonkeu

Giornalista di moda e cultura e direttore creativo

Patrick Joël Tatcheda Yonkeu was born in Cameroon in 1985, lives and works in Bologna. He moved to Italy in 2009 where he obtained a scholarship for the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and obtained a Master’s degree in Visual Arts in 2016 with a research project on the theme of Zen in the arts. His interest in metaphysics remains the basis of his practice, which concerns the relationship between human beings and nature and our place in the universe, and he searches for forms of spirituality more suitable for our times. His research is based on the idea of existence as a harmonious flow whose balance must be preserved and often refers to themes of life and death, the visible and the invisible and energy in its infinite forms. He deepens this research through numerous collaborations between Africa and Italy and by creating seminars on intercultural painting with schools and associations in Emilia-Romagna.

Born and raised in Kingston Jamaica, Jordan Anderson is a fashion and cultur

Patrick Joël Tatcheda Yonkeu was born in Cameroon in 1985, lives and works in Bologna. He moved to Italy in 2009 where he obtained a scholarship for the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and obtained a Master’s degree in Visual Arts in 2016 with a research project on the theme of Zen in the arts. His interest in metaphysics remains the basis of his practice, which concerns the relationship between human beings and nature and our place in the universe, and he searches for forms of spirituality more suitable for our times. His research is based on the idea of existence as a harmonious flow whose balance must be preserved and often refers to themes of life and death, the visible and the invisible and energy in its infinite forms. He deepens this research through numerous collaborations between Africa and Italy and by creating seminars on intercultural painting with schools and associations in Emilia-Romagna.

Born and raised in Kingston Jamaica, Jordan Anderson is a fashion and culture journalist & creative director who is currently based in Milan. His work often magnifies & explores political themes in and outside the fashion industry including race, gender, sexuality, identity & cultural ethics. He contributes to a variety of publications including Document Journal, Teen Vogue, Vogue Italia, The Face and is currently online editor & editor-at-large for Twin Magazine and nss magazine respectively.

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OSTINATO

Jessica Sartiani

Coffee trainer and coffee expert

Jessica Sartiani is a Florentine coffee trainer and coffee expert. With an Italian father and a mother who is half Filipino and half African-American, it is from her origins that her journey as a woman of coffee starts. As someone trained, operative and attentive to the recent sub-cultures of coffee, she started her work in one of the pioneer coffee shops of this selected product, Ditta Artigianale, ten years ago, studying and discovering all the work that precedes the service in the coffee shop, giving importance to the producing countries. Her experience evolved with the opening of the first Speciality coffee in Italy, dealing with the training of baristas and customers. She has participated in various competitions such as the Brewers cup, to improve her contact with the public and enrich her background, and has been part of training projects in Honduras, Lithuania and several local coffee start-ups.

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Veronica Caciolli

Curator

Following a specialist degree in Phenomenology of styles at DAMS in Bologna with Renato Barilli, she obtained a series of advanced studies in Curatela, History of Religions and Anthropology of Art in Berlin, Rome and Milan. She has collaborated with the magazines Segno and Exibart.
From 2005 to 2007 she was responsible for institutional exhibitions and publications for Photology, organizing projects involving, among others, Mario Giacomelli, Enzo Cucchi, Joel-Peter Witkin, Claudio Abate and Achille Bonito Oliva.
In the museum field, from 2008 to 2015 she curated the collections of the 20th and 21st century and the exhibitions on contemporary art at Mart, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto.
From 2016 to 2019, in charge of the Museum of Palazzo Pretorio in Prato, she worked on the symbolic stratifications of the time with Pretorio Studio, inviting artists in residence to the museum with a final collection-specific exhibition.

She published, among others, with Si

Following a specialist degree in Phenomenology of styles at DAMS in Bologna with Renato Barilli, she obtained a series of advanced studies in Curatela, History of Religions and Anthropology of Art in Berlin, Rome and Milan. She has collaborated with the magazines Segno and Exibart.
From 2005 to 2007 she was responsible for institutional exhibitions and publications for Photology, organizing projects involving, among others, Mario Giacomelli, Enzo Cucchi, Joel-Peter Witkin, Claudio Abate and Achille Bonito Oliva.
In the museum field, from 2008 to 2015 she curated the collections of the 20th and 21st century and the exhibitions on contemporary art at Mart, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto.
From 2016 to 2019, in charge of the Museum of Palazzo Pretorio in Prato, she worked on the symbolic stratifications of the time with Pretorio Studio, inviting artists in residence to the museum with a final collection-specific exhibition.

She published, among others, with Silvana Editoriale, Electa Mondadori, Gli Ori and Mousse Publishing.

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The time of Discretion, a cura di Veronica Caciolli

The time of Discretion è l’ultimo progetto a lungo termine dell’artista fiorentina Lisa Mara Batacchi, che presentò un capitolo del lavoro nella mostra omonima prodotta da MAD nel 2018 all'interno del ciclo Global Identities

Quest’anno con Silvana Editoriale esce la pubblicazione di tutto il progetto. La narrazione cronologica è cadenzata da immagini in presa diretta, opere e still dal film, che verranno in parte proiettati durante questa presentazione.

Sia la mostra che il libro sono stati curati da Veronica Caciolli.

Il progetto prende le mosse dalla partecipazione dell’artista alla Land Art Mongolia Biennal del 2016, il cui tema da declinare riguardava l’interpretazione dell’asse che divide il cielo dalla terra. Per farlo, l’artista ha raggiunto Guizhou, un villaggio montano della Cina meridionale dove l’antico popolo dei Hmong utilizza la tintura naturale ad indaco per realizzare tessuti tradizionali e celebrativi, oltre che per interrogare i propri avi. Dalla doppia esperienza con le donne Hmong, uniche custodi di questo processo, l’artista ha realizzato due tessuti: l’uno, trasportato in processione verso il monte sacro Altan Ovoo, ha costituito il lavoro per la Biennale

Quest’anno con Silvana Editoriale esce la pubblicazione di tutto il progetto. La narrazione cronologica è cadenzata da immagini in presa diretta, opere e still dal film, che verranno in parte proiettati durante questa presentazione.

Sia la mostra che il libro sono stati curati da Veronica Caciolli.

Il progetto prende le mosse dalla partecipazione dell’artista alla Land Art Mongolia Biennal del 2016, il cui tema da declinare riguardava l’interpretazione dell’asse che divide il cielo dalla terra. Per farlo, l’artista ha raggiunto Guizhou, un villaggio montano della Cina meridionale dove l’antico popolo dei Hmong utilizza la tintura naturale ad indaco per realizzare tessuti tradizionali e celebrativi, oltre che per interrogare i propri avi. Dalla doppia esperienza con le donne Hmong, uniche custodi di questo processo, l’artista ha realizzato due tessuti: l’uno, trasportato in processione verso il monte sacro Altan Ovoo, ha costituito il lavoro per la Biennale mongola. L’altro, l’immagine dell’odierna pubblicazione, rappresenta l’interpretazione di due esagrammi dell’I-Ching, interrogati sul destino imminente del mondo. Nel 2018 questi due lavori, assieme ad un video, due installazioni, cinque arazzi, quattro serie fotografiche e materiale documentario, hanno costituito la prima restituzione pubblica di questo ciclo di lavori, proprio alle Murate.

Il viaggio, l’esperienza e il lavoro di Lisa Mara Batacchi hanno offerto l’opportunità di affrontare una quanto mai interessante e puntuale serie di questioni: le reciproche interferenze o impermeabilità tra differenti culture, lo status di alcune minoranze etniche, gli esiti della globalizzazione, i ruoli della produzione industriale e manuale, le teorie sulla decrescita, la potenza o la miseria della memoria, il ruolo dell’arte. La complessità di questi temi, oltre che dalle due relatrici, è stata affrontata nel libro dalle molteplici prospettive di Sumesh Sharma, Federico Campagna, Valentina Gioia Levy, Wang Xiaomei.

The time of Discretion, a cura di Veronica Caciolli

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7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Monday-Myriam Boulos-Beirut

Evento speciale di punta di questa edizione di Middle East Now festival

The works of 7 talented young Middle Eastern photographers – Myriam Boulos, Sina Shiri, Abdo Shanan, Amir Hazim, Reem Falaknaz, Erdem Varol, Mouad Abillat – brought together to provide a personal visual perspective of their city – Beirut, Tehran, Algieri, Baghdad, Dubai, Istanbul, Marrakesh – on a specific day of the week.

The result, SEVEN BY SEVEN, is a collective voice and vision, and at the same time a set of personal and highly original points of view on the life of people in the Middle East, a visual narrative alternative to the media representation of these cities, very often negative and linked to the facts of news and geopolitics.

As an integral part of the project, the curator has created, exclusively for the festival, 7 newspapers that can be browsed in the exhibition: 7 newspapers in whose pages the story is developed through images of every day of a hypothetical week in the Middle East.

SEVEN BY SEVEN is also presented through a special online platf

The works of 7 talented young Middle Eastern photographers – Myriam Boulos, Sina Shiri, Abdo Shanan, Amir Hazim, Reem Falaknaz, Erdem Varol, Mouad Abillat – brought together to provide a personal visual perspective of their city – Beirut, Tehran, Algieri, Baghdad, Dubai, Istanbul, Marrakesh – on a specific day of the week.

The result, SEVEN BY SEVEN, is a collective voice and vision, and at the same time a set of personal and highly original points of view on the life of people in the Middle East, a visual narrative alternative to the media representation of these cities, very often negative and linked to the facts of news and geopolitics.

As an integral part of the project, the curator has created, exclusively for the festival, 7 newspapers that can be browsed in the exhibition: 7 newspapers in whose pages the story is developed through images of every day of a hypothetical week in the Middle East.

SEVEN BY SEVEN is also presented through a special online platform – 7×7.middleastnow.it – which allows visitors to digitally explore the work of the 7 photographers and their visual account of the cities in which they live.

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Monday-Myriam Boulos-Beirut

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SEVEN BY SEVEN

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade

Original project produced by Middle East Now Festival, conceived and curated by Roï Saade and co-produced by Murate Art District.

"In this era of revolutions, unrest, exclusion and individualism, photography can play a fundamental role in building bridges between communities in the Middle East and North Africa. The objective of this project is to explore the differences and similarities found in each city and celebrate their diversity and complexity". , Roï Saade.

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade

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Myriam Boulos

Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade

Myriam Boulos. Born in Beirut in 1992, she graduated in photography from the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts in 2015. She has taken part in international group exhibitions including Photomed, Beirut Art Fair, Berlin PhotoWeek, Mashreq to Maghreb (Dresden, Germany), Beyond boundaries (New York), C’est Beyrouth (Paris) and 3ème biennale des Photographes du monde arabe (Paris), and received the Byblos Bank Award for Photography in 2014. He uses his camera to interrogate the city and its people, and his photos are a mix of documentary and personal research.

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7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Myriam Boulos | Mondays in Beirut

The works of 7 talented young Middle Eastern photographers on a specific day of the week

Myriam Boulos | Mondays in Beirut

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Myriam Boulos | Mondays in Beirut

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7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade

As an integral part of the project, the curator has created, exclusively for the festival, 7 newspapers that can be browsed in the exhibition: 7 newspapers in whose pages the story is developed through images of every day of a hypothetical week in the Middle East.

Myriam Boulos | Mondays in Beirut - pdf - 18 MB

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade

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Sina Shiri

Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade

Sina Shiri. He was born in Rasht, Iran in 1991. He started photography at the age of 16 and has since worked in various Iranian press agencies and magazines as a photographer. Today he is a freelancer and focuses on social issues and themes.

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7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Sina Shiri | Tuesday in Tehran

The works of 7 talented young Middle Eastern photographers on a specific day of the week

Sina Shiri | Tuesday in Tehran

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Sina Shiri | Tuesday in Tehran

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7X7| Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Sina Shiri | Tuesday in Tehran

As an integral part of the project, the curator has created, exclusively for the festival, 7 newspapers that can be browsed in the exhibition: 7 newspapers in whose pages the story is developed through images of every day of a hypothetical week in the Middle East.

Sina Shiri | Tuesday in Tehran - pdf - 3 MB

7X7| Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Sina Shiri | Tuesday in Tehran

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Abdo Shanan

Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade

Abdo was born in 1982 in Oran, Algeria, to a Sudanese father and Algerian mother. He studied engineering at the University of Sirte, Libya, until 2006. In 2012 an internship at Magnum Photos Paris gave him the opportunity to reflect on his photographic approach and produce his first short story for the magazine “Rukh”. His photographs have been published in numerous international magazines and newspapers. In 2015 he received a nomination for the Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund, in 2019 he won the CAP (Contemporary African Photography) award for his project “Dry”, in the same year he was selected for Joop Swart Masterclass by World Press Photo.

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7X7| Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Abdo Shanan | Wednedays in Algiers

The works of 7 talented young Middle Eastern photographers on a specific day of the week

Abdo Shanan | Wednedays in Algiers

7X7| Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Abdo Shanan | Wednedays in Algiers

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7X7| Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Abdo Shanan | Wednedays in Algiers

As an integral part of the project, the curator has created, exclusively for the festival, 7 newspapers that can be browsed in the exhibition: 7 newspapers in whose pages the story is developed through images of every day of a hypothetical week in the Middle East.

Abdo Shanan | Wednedays in Algiers - pdf - 7 MB

7X7| Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Abdo Shanan | Wednedays in Algiers

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Amir Hazim

Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade

Amir Hazim is an artist and photographer based in Baghdad. He graduated from Baghdad College of Fine Arts and began his professional career in 2019, publishing in Arab News, The National and many others.

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7X7| Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Amir Hazim | Thursdays in Baghdad

The works of 7 talented young Middle Eastern photographers on a specific day of the week

Amir Hazim | Thursdays in Baghdad

7X7| Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Amir Hazim | Thursdays in Baghdad

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7X7| Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Amir Hazim | Thursdays in Baghdad

As an integral part of the project, the curator has created, exclusively for the festival, 7 newspapers that can be browsed in the exhibition: 7 newspapers in whose pages the story is developed through images of every day of a hypothetical week in the Middle East.

Amir Hazim | Thursdays in Baghdad - pdf - 14 MB

7X7| Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Amir Hazim | Thursdays in Baghdad

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Reem Falaknaz

Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade

Reem Falaknaz documents with his artistic work the social and physical landscape of the United Arab Emirates and its inhabitants. In 2014 he took part in the prestigious Arab Documentary Photography Program, and his international participations include the United Arab Emirates Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2016 and the Lahore Biennale in 2020.

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7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Reem Falaknaz | Fridays in Dubai

The works of 7 talented young Middle Eastern photographers on a specific day of the week

Reem Falaknaz | Fridays in Dubai

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Reem Falaknaz | Fridays in Dubai

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7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Reem Falaknaz | Fridays in Dubai

As an integral part of the project, the curator has created, exclusively for the festival, 7 newspapers that can be browsed in the exhibition: 7 newspapers in whose pages the story is developed through images of every day of a hypothetical week in the Middle East.

Reem Falaknaz | Fridays in Dubai - pdf - 16 MB

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Reem Falaknaz | Fridays in Dubai

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Erdem Varol

Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade

Erdem Varol. Born in 1988, he lives in Istanbul. In 2017 Erdem published his first book “Free Fall” together with two fanzines, published in 2018 and 2019 respectively. He has held solo and group exhibitions in Turkey, Italy, France and elsewhere.

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7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Erdem Varol | Saturdays in Instanbul

The works of 7 talented young Middle Eastern photographers on a specific day of the week

Erdem Varol | Saturdays in Instanbul

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Erdem Varol | Saturdays in Instanbul

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7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Erdem Varol | Saturdays in Instanbul

As an integral part of the project, the curator has created, exclusively for the festival, 7 newspapers that can be browsed in the exhibition: 7 newspapers in whose pages the story is developed through images of every day of a hypothetical week in the Middle East.

Erdem Varol | Saturdays in Instanbul - pdf - 20 MB

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Erdem Varol | Saturdays in Instanbul

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Mouad Abillat

7X7 Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade

Mouad Abillat is a Moroccan photographer and director. He has a degree in Audiovisual Technician and has also studied photography and screenwriting, which has influenced his style and led him to develop an interest in storytelling. By photographing young people on the streets of Marrakech with a unique and original style, he strives to portray the contradictions and fight against the stereotypes faced by the new generations today.

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7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Mouad Abillat | Sundays in Marrakesh

The works of 7 talented young Middle Eastern photographers on a specific day of the week

Mouad Abillat | Sundays in Marrakesh

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Mouad Abillat | Sundays in Marrakesh

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7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Mouad Abillat | Sundays in Marrakesh

As an integral part of the project, the curator has created, exclusively for the festival, 7 newspapers that can be browsed in the exhibition: 7 newspapers in whose pages the story is developed through images of every day of a hypothetical week in the Middle East.

Mouad Abillat | Sundays in Marrakesh - pdf - 16 MB

7X7 | Transcultural narratives from the Middle east and North Africa. Curated by Roi Saade | Mouad Abillat | Sundays in Marrakesh

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Adji Dieye

Photographer

Adji Dieye is an ItaloSenegalese photographer born in Milan in 1991. She graduated in New Technologies for Art at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan. Over the past years she has been traveling between Milan and Dakar, focusing her research on the influence of advertisement in the African visual culture. Her work explores different facets of West African societies; the influence of advertising in the construction of a national identity and the syncretic spirituality that remains central to African communities.

Adji Dieye’s artistic practice pushes the boundaries of photography in an attempt to investigate the archetypes that constitute African visual cultures. In her research, the continent is never considered an end in itself; instead, it represents a bridge towards further investigations into broader social and geopolitical realities.

Adji Dieye is an ItaloSenegalese photographer born in Milan in 1991. She graduated in New Technologies for Art at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan. Over the past years she has been traveling between Milan and Dakar, focusing her research on the influence of advertisement in the African visual culture. Her work explores different facets of West African societies; the influence of advertising in the construction of a national identity and the syncretic spirituality that remains central to African communities.

Adji Dieye’s artistic practice pushes the boundaries of photography in an attempt to investigate the archetypes that constitute African visual cultures. In her research, the continent is never considered an end in itself; instead, it represents a bridge towards further investigations into broader social and geopolitical realities.

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Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito

Black History Month Florence 2020

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito

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M’barek Bouhchichi

Visual artist

Born in 1975, Akka, Morocco, he lives and works in Tahanaout next to Marrakech where he teaches art. Using painting, sculpture, drawing or even video, M’barek Bouhchichi develops his work through a tentative language grounded on the exploration of the limits between our internal discourse and its extension towards the outer world, the actual, the other. He places his works at the crossroad between the aesthetic and the social, exploring associated fields as possibilities for self-definition.

Recently, his work has been exhibited as a solo show Les mains noires (Kulte, Rabat, Morocco, 2016), as collective exhibition Documents bilingues (MUCEM, Marseille, France, 2017), as well as Le Maroc contemporain (Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France, 2014), Between walls (Le 18, Marrakech, Morocco, 2017).

Born in 1975, Akka, Morocco, he lives and works in Tahanaout next to Marrakech where he teaches art. Using painting, sculpture, drawing or even video, M’barek Bouhchichi develops his work through a tentative language grounded on the exploration of the limits between our internal discourse and its extension towards the outer world, the actual, the other. He places his works at the crossroad between the aesthetic and the social, exploring associated fields as possibilities for self-definition.

Recently, his work has been exhibited as a solo show Les mains noires (Kulte, Rabat, Morocco, 2016), as collective exhibition Documents bilingues (MUCEM, Marseille, France, 2017), as well as Le Maroc contemporain (Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France, 2014), Between walls (Le 18, Marrakech, Morocco, 2017).

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M’barek Bouhchichi

Terre - Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito

M’barek Bouhchichi

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Adji Dieye

Red fever - Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito

Adji Dieye

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Black History Month Florence 2020

An exhibition that examines the implementation of social obligations towards dirty work, the shortcomings of cultural assimilation, the silencing of histories and the politics of respectability.

The artists in the exhibition each draw upon experiences of a periods of permanence in Italy that pushes them to engage the cities of Rome, Umbertide, Milan and Florence as sites for cultural production with the need to engage history while not falling victim to it.

Activist Pape Diaw, in a 2013 interview spoke of “…sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito “, literally getting our hands dirty to do a clean job. This contradiction is at the core of a social context where dirty work is engaged in to maintain a status governed by the politics of respectability and social policing.

The exhibition, curated by Black History Month Florence, as part of the 5th edition of BHMF, in collaboration with Villa Romana (Florence), Civitella Ranieri Foundation (Umbertide) and Galleria Continua (San Gim

An exhibition that examines the implementation of social obligations towards dirty work, the shortcomings of cultural assimilation, the silencing of histories and the politics of respectability.

The artists in the exhibition each draw upon experiences of a periods of permanence in Italy that pushes them to engage the cities of Rome, Umbertide, Milan and Florence as sites for cultural production with the need to engage history while not falling victim to it.

Activist Pape Diaw, in a 2013 interview spoke of “…sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito “, literally getting our hands dirty to do a clean job. This contradiction is at the core of a social context where dirty work is engaged in to maintain a status governed by the politics of respectability and social policing.

The exhibition, curated by Black History Month Florence, as part of the 5th edition of BHMF, in collaboration with Villa Romana (Florence), Civitella Ranieri Foundation (Umbertide) and Galleria Continua (San Gimignano), presents the work of 6 international artists who have used the Italian context as a place of artistic production. A series of transversal works leads to a reworking of stereotyped notions of Made in Italy that tend to exclude Afro-descendents, revealing colonial attitudes and inviting and breaking preconceptions.

An insistence on personal narratives as an override to the flattened projections of Blackness, the construction of bridges between a colonial past and a neo-colonial contemporary reality and the ethereality of monumentality all infuse these works with a meditation on the past as a marker of what’s to come.

Together they form a harmonic melody that is discordant with the prescribed, centralized, consumed narrative but finds just enough alignment to relay its power to enrich the age-old tune

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito

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Sasha Huber

Photographer, video artist, performer

Sasha Huber (CH/FI) is a visual artist of Swiss-Haitian heritage, born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1975. She lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. Huber’s work is primarily concerned with the politics of memory and belonging, particularly in relation to colonial residue left in the environment. Sensitive to the subtle threads connecting history and the present, she uses and responds to archival material within a layered creative practice that encompasses performance-based interventions, video, photography, and collaborations. Huber is also claiming the compressed-air staple gun, aware of its symbolic significance as a weapon, while offering the potential to renegotiate unequal power dynamics. She is known for her artistic research contribution to the Demounting Louis Agassiz campaign, aiming at dismantling the glaciologist’s lesser-known but contentious racist heritage. This long-term project (since 2008) has been concerned with unearthing and redressing the little-known history

Sasha Huber (CH/FI) is a visual artist of Swiss-Haitian heritage, born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1975. She lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. Huber’s work is primarily concerned with the politics of memory and belonging, particularly in relation to colonial residue left in the environment. Sensitive to the subtle threads connecting history and the present, she uses and responds to archival material within a layered creative practice that encompasses performance-based interventions, video, photography, and collaborations. Huber is also claiming the compressed-air staple gun, aware of its symbolic significance as a weapon, while offering the potential to renegotiate unequal power dynamics. She is known for her artistic research contribution to the Demounting Louis Agassiz campaign, aiming at dismantling the glaciologist’s lesser-known but contentious racist heritage. This long-term project (since 2008) has been concerned with unearthing and redressing the little-known history and cultural legacies of the Swiss-born naturalist and glaciologist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), an influential proponent of “scientific” racism who advocated for segregation and “racial hygiene”. Huber has had solo exhibitions such as at the Hasselblad Foundation (Project Room) in Gothenburg and participated in numerous international exhibitions, including the 56th la Biennale di Venezia in 2015 (collateral exhibition: Frontier Reimagined), the 19th Biennale of Sydney in 2014, and in the 29th Biennial of São Paulo in 2010.

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Sasha Huber

The Firsts-Edmonia Lewis - Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito

Sasha Huber

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Delio Jasse

Photographer

Delio Jasse was born in 1980 in Luanda, Angola and lives and works in Milan. In his photographic work, he often interweaves found images with clues from past lives (found passport photos, family albums) to draw links between photography – in particular the concept of the ‘latent image’ – and memory.

Jasse is also known for experimenting with analogue photographic printing processes, including cyanotype, platinum and early printing processes such as ‘Van Dyke Brown’, as well as developing his own printing techniques.

Recent exhibitions include: MAXXI, Rome (2018); Villa Romana, Florence (2018); Biennale dell’immagine, Lugano (solo, 2017); Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm (2017); SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (2017); Bamako Encounters, Bamako (2017); Lagos Biennial, Lagos (2017); Tiwani Contemporary, London (solo, 2016); Walther Collection Project Space, NY (2016); Dak’art Biennale international exhibition (2016); and the Angolan Pavilion, 56th Venice

Delio Jasse was born in 1980 in Luanda, Angola and lives and works in Milan. In his photographic work, he often interweaves found images with clues from past lives (found passport photos, family albums) to draw links between photography – in particular the concept of the ‘latent image’ – and memory.

Jasse is also known for experimenting with analogue photographic printing processes, including cyanotype, platinum and early printing processes such as ‘Van Dyke Brown’, as well as developing his own printing techniques.

Recent exhibitions include: MAXXI, Rome (2018); Villa Romana, Florence (2018); Biennale dell’immagine, Lugano (solo, 2017); Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm (2017); SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (2017); Bamako Encounters, Bamako (2017); Lagos Biennial, Lagos (2017); Tiwani Contemporary, London (solo, 2016); Walther Collection Project Space, NY (2016); Dak’art Biennale international exhibition (2016); and the Angolan Pavilion, 56th Venice Biennale (2015). He was one of three finalists in the BES Photo Prize (2014) and won the Iwalewa Art Award in 2015.

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Delio Jasse

Pontus - Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito

Delio Jasse

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Amelia Umuhire

Video artist, director

Amelia Umuhire, born 1991 in Kigali Rwanda, lives as an artist and filmmaker in Berlin. In 2015 she wrote and filmed her first web series, Polyglot, in which she follows young deracinated London- and Berlin-based Rwandese artists with her camera. The series has been shown at numerous festivals, including the Festival D’Angers, the Tribeca Film Festival and the Geneva International Film Festival, where it was named Best International Web Series in 2015. Her short film Mugabo is an experimental short film set in Kigali. It explores the question of how to return to one´s homeland and how to deal with the past. In 2017 it was awarded Best Experimental Film at the Blackstar Film Festival and is currently touring festivals in North America and amongst others screened at MOCA Los Angeles, the MCA Chicago, the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the Smithsonian African American Film Festival. In 2018 Amelia Umuhire produced the radio feature Vaterland for the German radio station Deutschlandfun

Amelia Umuhire, born 1991 in Kigali Rwanda, lives as an artist and filmmaker in Berlin. In 2015 she wrote and filmed her first web series, Polyglot, in which she follows young deracinated London- and Berlin-based Rwandese artists with her camera. The series has been shown at numerous festivals, including the Festival D’Angers, the Tribeca Film Festival and the Geneva International Film Festival, where it was named Best International Web Series in 2015. Her short film Mugabo is an experimental short film set in Kigali. It explores the question of how to return to one´s homeland and how to deal with the past. In 2017 it was awarded Best Experimental Film at the Blackstar Film Festival and is currently touring festivals in North America and amongst others screened at MOCA Los Angeles, the MCA Chicago, the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the Smithsonian African American Film Festival. In 2018 Amelia Umuhire produced the radio feature Vaterland for the German radio station Deutschlandfunk Kultur. It tells the story of her father Innocent Seminega as a young student, teacher, husband and father until his death at the hands of the Hutu extremists. In February this year Umuhire had her first solo exhibition at Decad Berlin.

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Amelia Umuhire

Untitled - Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito

Amelia Umuhire

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Nari Ward

Fotografo, video artista, scultore

Nari Ward (nato nel 1963 a St. Andrew, Giamaica; vive e lavora a New York) è noto per le sue installazioni scultoree composte da materiale di scarto trovato e raccolto nel suo quartiere. Ha riutilizzato oggetti come passeggini, carrelli della spesa, bottiglie, porte, televisori, registratori di cassa e lacci delle scarpe.

Ward ricontestualizza questi oggetti trovati in giustapposizioni stimolanti che creano significati metaforici complessi per affrontare questioni sociali e politiche che circondano la razza, la povertà e la cultura del consumo. Lascia intenzionalmente aperto il significato del suo lavoro, consentendo allo spettatore di fornire la propria interpretazione.

Mostre personali del suo lavoro sono state organizzate presso l’Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2017); SocratesSculpture Park, New York (2017); The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (2016); Pérez Art Museum Miami (2015); Savannah College of Art e Design Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2015); Museo d’ar

Nari Ward (nato nel 1963 a St. Andrew, Giamaica; vive e lavora a New York) è noto per le sue installazioni scultoree composte da materiale di scarto trovato e raccolto nel suo quartiere. Ha riutilizzato oggetti come passeggini, carrelli della spesa, bottiglie, porte, televisori, registratori di cassa e lacci delle scarpe.

Ward ricontestualizza questi oggetti trovati in giustapposizioni stimolanti che creano significati metaforici complessi per affrontare questioni sociali e politiche che circondano la razza, la povertà e la cultura del consumo. Lascia intenzionalmente aperto il significato del suo lavoro, consentendo allo spettatore di fornire la propria interpretazione.

Mostre personali del suo lavoro sono state organizzate presso l’Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2017); SocratesSculpture Park, New York (2017); The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (2016); Pérez Art Museum Miami (2015); Savannah College of Art e Design Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2015); Museo d’arte della Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA (2014); The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (2011); Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA (2011); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2002); e Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (2001, 2000).

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Nari Ward

Immigrist Male Figure Wall Tryptich - Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito

Nari Ward

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Justin Randolph Thompson su BHMF 2020

Artista e Direttore Black History Month Florence | Residenza d'artista e Mostra 2020

Justin Randolph Thompson
Artista e Direttore Black History Month Florence | Residenza d'artista e Mostra 2020

Justin Randolph Thompson su BHMF 2020

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Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019 Introduction by the curator

Justin Randolph Thompson, co-founder and director Black History Month Florence

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2020 Introduction

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019 Introduction by the curator

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Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019 Concept by the curator

Justin Randolph Thompson, co-founder and director Black History Month Florence

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019 Concept by the curator

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Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019 Justin Randolph Thompson about Amelia Umuhire

Justin Randolph Thompson, co-founder and director Black History Month Florence

Justin Randolph Thompson su Amelia Umuhire

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019 Justin Randolph Thompson about Amelia Umuhire

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Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019 Justin Randolph Thompson about Nari Ward

Justin Randolph Thompson, co-founder and director Black History Month Florence

Justin Randolph Thompson su Nari Ward

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019 Justin Randolph Thompson about Nari Ward

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Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019 Justin Randolph Thompson about Sasha Huber

Justin Randolph Thompson, co-founder and director Black History Month Florence

Justin Randolph Thompson su Sasha Huber

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019 Justin Randolph Thompson about Sasha Huber

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Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2020

Janine Gaëlle Dieudji su M'Barek Bouhchichi

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2020

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Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019

Janine Gaelle Dieudji about Adji Dieye

Janine Gaelle Dieudji su Adji Dieye

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019

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Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019

Janine Gaelle Dieudji about Delio Jasse

Janine Gaelle Dieudji su Delio Jasse

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito BHMF 2019

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Black Archive Alliance

Black History Month Florence 2020

A Villa Romana project in collaboration with Black History Month Florence

Black Archive Alliance brings an unusual perspective to Florence: that of nine students searching for signs of an African presence in the city. The project, which resulted from the collaboration between the Villa Romana and Black History Month Florence and which is now in its second edition, interweaves different areas and time periods. The narratives that emerged from this excavation exercise are fragments of a little-known, if not completely unknown Florence and its political, social and economic entanglements with Africa, Africans and the Diaspora since the 15th century.

The work ranges from research centres par excellence, such as the Biblioteca Laurenziana and the Archivio del Risorgimento, to study centres known mainly to specialists, such as the Istituto Agronomico dell’Oltremare (now one of the headquarters of the Italian Agency for International Cooperation) and the Istituto Geografico Militare, to pri

A Villa Romana project in collaboration with Black History Month Florence

Black Archive Alliance brings an unusual perspective to Florence: that of nine students searching for signs of an African presence in the city. The project, which resulted from the collaboration between the Villa Romana and Black History Month Florence and which is now in its second edition, interweaves different areas and time periods. The narratives that emerged from this excavation exercise are fragments of a little-known, if not completely unknown Florence and its political, social and economic entanglements with Africa, Africans and the Diaspora since the 15th century.

The work ranges from research centres par excellence, such as the Biblioteca Laurenziana and the Archivio del Risorgimento, to study centres known mainly to specialists, such as the Istituto Agronomico dell’Oltremare (now one of the headquarters of the Italian Agency for International Cooperation) and the Istituto Geografico Militare, to private collections in Palazzo Pitti with the treasure of the Grand Dukes. The second edition of Black Archive Alliance was carried out as a tutoring format with teachers and scholars in tandem with students, guiding their research. The project collaborated with scholars from Università degli Studi Firenze, Studio Arts College International, NYU Florence, Villa I Tatti, Syracuse University Florence, Santa Reparata International School of Art and ISI Florence.

The exhibition at Murate Art District presents a selection of the research results and links to the exhibition format of Black Archive Alliance’s first edition, which used information stands at various locations and institutions in the city to reveal the unknown or forgotten stories of moments of contact and encounters between Florence and Africa.
Curated by Justin Randolph Thompson, BHMF and Agnes Stillger, Villa Romana

Black Archive Alliance

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Black Archive Alliance

Black History Month Florence 2020

Black Archive Alliance

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Mohamed Keita

Photographer

Mohamed Keita was born in Côte d’Ivoire in 1993. At the age of 14, he left his country in the middle of a civil war to travel alone between Guinea, Mali, Algeria and Libya, where he embarked to cross the Mediterranean. After landing in Malta, he managed to reach Italy in 2010. When he arrived in Rome, at the age of 17, he lived on the street for a few months and began to attend the Civico Zero day care centre for minors in Savethechildren, where he was given his first camera.
He lives and works in Rome where he teaches photography at the Civico Zero center. In 2017 he opened a workshop for street children in Mali.

Main exhibitions and awards:

“Piedi, scarpe, bagagli”, Camera dei Deputati, Roma, 2012
“Ritratti”, XII Festival Internazionale di Roma, MACRO, Roma, 2014
Premio ‘young/old photographer’ PHC Capalbio fotografia, 2015
“Desperate crossing” mostra di Mohamed Keita e Paolo Pellegrin, Istituto italiano di cultura di New York, 2016
“Par l’errance”, Centro d�

Mohamed Keita was born in Côte d’Ivoire in 1993. At the age of 14, he left his country in the middle of a civil war to travel alone between Guinea, Mali, Algeria and Libya, where he embarked to cross the Mediterranean. After landing in Malta, he managed to reach Italy in 2010. When he arrived in Rome, at the age of 17, he lived on the street for a few months and began to attend the Civico Zero day care centre for minors in Savethechildren, where he was given his first camera.
He lives and works in Rome where he teaches photography at the Civico Zero center. In 2017 he opened a workshop for street children in Mali.

Main exhibitions and awards:

“Piedi, scarpe, bagagli”, Camera dei Deputati, Roma, 2012
“Ritratti”, XII Festival Internazionale di Roma, MACRO, Roma, 2014
Premio ‘young/old photographer’ PHC Capalbio fotografia, 2015
“Desperate crossing” mostra di Mohamed Keita e Paolo Pellegrin, Istituto italiano di cultura di New York, 2016
“Par l’errance”, Centro d’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, 2018
“Rothko in Lampedusa”, mostra collettiva organizzata da UNHCR, Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi, Venezia, 2019

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Gabriele Pantaleo

Curator

Gabriele Pantaleo graduated in Art History and methodology of historical and artistic research at Universtiy of Genoa in 2013. In 2015 he won the call for young curators helded by Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci of Prato and collaborated in the organization of the exhibition Così ti ha fatto Dio e così ti devo tenere: the call was organized in order to discover and to promote young artists in Tuscany. In 2016 he parteciped as curator in the exhibition Guardare il mondo di oggi e immaginare quello di domani organized by Centro Pecci of Prato. In 2018 he enrolled in the course for indipendent curators N.I.C.E. and he worked as curator in the exhibition Mettersi a nudo organized as part of the art fair Paratissima in Turin. In 2019 he has been assistent professor for the master course in Museum services management organized by Palazzo Spinelli Associazione no profit Firenze and Mus.E. Firenze. In the same year he organized the exhibition Nel Pensiero, Nello Sguardo by

Gabriele Pantaleo graduated in Art History and methodology of historical and artistic research at Universtiy of Genoa in 2013. In 2015 he won the call for young curators helded by Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci of Prato and collaborated in the organization of the exhibition Così ti ha fatto Dio e così ti devo tenere: the call was organized in order to discover and to promote young artists in Tuscany. In 2016 he parteciped as curator in the exhibition Guardare il mondo di oggi e immaginare quello di domani organized by Centro Pecci of Prato. In 2018 he enrolled in the course for indipendent curators N.I.C.E. and he worked as curator in the exhibition Mettersi a nudo organized as part of the art fair Paratissima in Turin. In 2019 he has been assistent professor for the master course in Museum services management organized by Palazzo Spinelli Associazione no profit Firenze and Mus.E. Firenze. In the same year he organized the exhibition Nel Pensiero, Nello Sguardo by photographer Mohamed Keita, hosted by MAD Murate Art District in Florence. He lives and works in Florence

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Nel pensiero, nello sguardo

Photography exhibition by Mohamed Keita

Mohamed Keita’s residence at MAD Murate Art District focusing on images of institutional integration and volunteering in the media. The project took shape through visits to reception centres based in the Florence area. There, Mohamed Keita took the shots on display in this exhibition, which offer a different representation of otherness; a divergence that is not only the subject of our gaze and thoughts, but also leads us to a different way of thinking and looking.

_ Nowadays the images are so many and widespread to be unquantifiable. The speed that characterizes the visual and cognitive fruition in digital media makes their approach increasingly detached and fleeting. Starting from this observation, the exhibition is designed with the aim of creating a time for the image, citing the composition of the medieval and renaissance altarpieces. The exhibition, without captions, wants to show itself as a visual story, in which the viewer’s thought can find space to explore.

_ The first wo

Mohamed Keita’s residence at MAD Murate Art District focusing on images of institutional integration and volunteering in the media. The project took shape through visits to reception centres based in the Florence area. There, Mohamed Keita took the shots on display in this exhibition, which offer a different representation of otherness; a divergence that is not only the subject of our gaze and thoughts, but also leads us to a different way of thinking and looking.

_ Nowadays the images are so many and widespread to be unquantifiable. The speed that characterizes the visual and cognitive fruition in digital media makes their approach increasingly detached and fleeting. Starting from this observation, the exhibition is designed with the aim of creating a time for the image, citing the composition of the medieval and renaissance altarpieces. The exhibition, without captions, wants to show itself as a visual story, in which the viewer’s thought can find space to explore.

_ The first works on show are a series of shots that frame architectural details; the spaces introduce the story, capturing the look with a simple chromatic effect. But the man immediately begins to be evoked with the presence of some objects such as clothes stretched out in the sun. The exhibition continues with a dialogue between portraits of the guests and details of the places where they live, ending with a diptych of portraits. Mohamed avoids producing pietistic or stereotyped portraits, he prefers to portray people in their individual humanity and he doesen’t want to tell their stories. You need to go beyond piety to accept otherness.

_ The relationship between geometric structures and portraits is a stylistic and narrative choice of the photographer, who create the composition to capture the gaze, to push it to pause and to take time. This shots activates a thought that does not stop at the surface but is able to savor the message of the image, to discover its true content.

In the residency survey were also created two ‘tales’, here exposed, which try to look from inside the world of SPRAR and volunteering, accompanied by images of Aboubacar Kourouma, guest of a reception centre.

Nel pensiero, nello sguardo

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Nel pensiero, nello sguardo

Photography exhibition by Mohamed Keita

Nel pensiero, nello sguardo

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Piero Mottola

Florentine Voices

Piero Mottola is an experimental artist and musician, professor of Sound Design and Ornamental Plastic at the Accademia di Belle Arti of Rome. Director of the LER Laboratorio di Estetica del Rumore, He formed himeself within the Eventualist Theory at the Centro Studi Jartrakor in Rome, where in 1988 he held his first solo exhibition with interactive experiments “Improvement-Degradation” and “Bello-Brutto”. He investigates the subjectivity and free interpretation of the user to visual and sound structures through experiments and measurements. He has been invited by several international universities to give lectures and to carry out master’s degrees on the relationship between noise and emotion. The results of these researches have been published in the book Passeggiate emozionali, dal rumore alla Musica Relazionale (Emotional Walks, from noise to Relational Music), presented in several Italian and international universities and in the cultural transmissions of the Italian rad

Piero Mottola is an experimental artist and musician, professor of Sound Design and Ornamental Plastic at the Accademia di Belle Arti of Rome. Director of the LER Laboratorio di Estetica del Rumore, He formed himeself within the Eventualist Theory at the Centro Studi Jartrakor in Rome, where in 1988 he held his first solo exhibition with interactive experiments “Improvement-Degradation” and “Bello-Brutto”. He investigates the subjectivity and free interpretation of the user to visual and sound structures through experiments and measurements. He has been invited by several international universities to give lectures and to carry out master’s degrees on the relationship between noise and emotion. The results of these researches have been published in the book Passeggiate emozionali, dal rumore alla Musica Relazionale (Emotional Walks, from noise to Relational Music), presented in several Italian and international universities and in the cultural transmissions of the Italian radio and television, Rai Uno, Rai Radio Tre and Radio Cultura Argentina. These researches have also been presented in several national and international museums: MAMBA, Museo Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires (2013); Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2013); MACRO, Museo d’arte contemporanea, Rome (2015, 2017; 2018); Museo Hermann Nitsch-Fondazione Morra, Napoli (2009, 2015, 2019); MAC Museo d’arte contemporanea, Santiago del Cile (2016); Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication (2017); Istituto di Cultura Italiano, Pechino (2017); Museo della Certosa di S. Lucia, Rome (2018); Museo della Certosa di S. Martino, Castel S. Elmo, Naples (2018, 2019); CCK Kirchner Cultural Center, Buenos Aires (2019); Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Buenos Aires (2019).

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Piero Mottola

Florentine Voices

Piero Mottola

The work, composed by the artist following an investigation into the emotional reactions of the Florentine community, returns a composite and fluctuating emotional portrait of the City.

The “Voices” project is an itinerant, in progress and experimental research aimed at investigating the evocative and musical potential of the voice of ordinary people, in different geographical areas of the planet.

The research, so far carried out at Valencia, Lisbon, Tenerife, Rome, Santiago de Chile, Leipzig, Warsaw, Havana, Buenos Aires, Wuhan, Shanghai, Beijing, now reaches Florence. To the citizens participating in the experiment, convened with a public call, were asked to associate ten emotional parameters (fear, anguish, agitation, anger, sadness, astonishment, excitement, pleasure, joy, calm) with sounds and noises produced exclusively with the voice and the body. The hundreds of sound fragments obtained were catalogued and twisted into compositions created using the Acoustic Autocorrelator,

The work, composed by the artist following an investigation into the emotional reactions of the Florentine community, returns a composite and fluctuating emotional portrait of the City.

The “Voices” project is an itinerant, in progress and experimental research aimed at investigating the evocative and musical potential of the voice of ordinary people, in different geographical areas of the planet.

The research, so far carried out at Valencia, Lisbon, Tenerife, Rome, Santiago de Chile, Leipzig, Warsaw, Havana, Buenos Aires, Wuhan, Shanghai, Beijing, now reaches Florence. To the citizens participating in the experiment, convened with a public call, were asked to associate ten emotional parameters (fear, anguish, agitation, anger, sadness, astonishment, excitement, pleasure, joy, calm) with sounds and noises produced exclusively with the voice and the body. The hundreds of sound fragments obtained were catalogued and twisted into compositions created using the Acoustic Autocorrelator, a device capable of create random algorithms of emotional-acoustic walks for acoustic environments.

The three cells on the first floor present an excursus of Mottola’s work which takes us back to the origins of the experiments of the 1980s and the early 1990s about the concept of “Improvement, Worsening” aesthetic and the categories of “Beautiful, Ugly”, in which the artist reflected on measuring the creative process with relational practices through the direct involvement of the public.

The chromatic exuberance of the most recent works, exhibited in the last cell, reveals the research process of the artist, aimed at restore visual scores responding to the search for aesthetic enjoyment expressed by the user, capable of stimulating the construction of an incentive work to arouse different and profound interpretations on the emotional level.

Florentine Voices

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Piero Mottola

Florentine Voices, Piero Mottola

Florentine voices, continues in Florence the itinerant and in progress experimental research conducted by the artist Piero Mottola aimed at investigating the evocative and musical potential of the voice of ordinary people in different geographical areas of the planet.

Florentine Voices, Piero Mottola

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Piero Mottola

Florentine Voices

Piero Mottola

Florentine Voices | Piero Mottola

Florentine Voices

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Concerto integrale Florentine Voices

Piero Mottola e il coro delle Florentine e Chinese Voices

Concerto integrale Florentine Voices, Piero Mottola

Concerto integrale Florentine Voices

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Lucia Baldini

Fotografa

Lucia Baldini vive a San Giovanni Valdarno, punto di partenza del suo viaggio fotografico. Fin dai primi anni di lavoro, facendo parte della casa discografica Materiali Sonori, attraverso mostre, copertine di dischi e collaborazioni con testate musicali, le sue immagini sono divenute un’importante testimonianza della scena underground musicale degli anni Ottanta. Lavora come fotografa di scena per molte compagnie e festival di teatro e danza. Dal 1990 trova una forte affinità con la cultura del tango argentino. Nel 1997 pubblica il libro fotografico “Giorni di Tango” che diviene il catalogo della mostra omonima. Entra in contatto con le più interessanti realtà legate al tango argentino e nel 2001, in collaborazione con la giornalista Michela Fregona, realizza il volume “Anime Altrove – luoghi e genti del tango argentino in Italia”. Nel 1996, con lo spettacolo “Omaggio a Nijinsky”, diretto da Beppe Menegatti, inizia la collaborazione con Carla Fracci, che durerà per

Lucia Baldini vive a San Giovanni Valdarno, punto di partenza del suo viaggio fotografico. Fin dai primi anni di lavoro, facendo parte della casa discografica Materiali Sonori, attraverso mostre, copertine di dischi e collaborazioni con testate musicali, le sue immagini sono divenute un’importante testimonianza della scena underground musicale degli anni Ottanta. Lavora come fotografa di scena per molte compagnie e festival di teatro e danza. Dal 1990 trova una forte affinità con la cultura del tango argentino. Nel 1997 pubblica il libro fotografico “Giorni di Tango” che diviene il catalogo della mostra omonima. Entra in contatto con le più interessanti realtà legate al tango argentino e nel 2001, in collaborazione con la giornalista Michela Fregona, realizza il volume “Anime Altrove – luoghi e genti del tango argentino in Italia”. Nel 1996, con lo spettacolo “Omaggio a Nijinsky”, diretto da Beppe Menegatti, inizia la collaborazione con Carla Fracci, che durerà per oltre 12 anni. Nel 2003 pubblica per la Materiali Sonori il libro fotografico: “Banda Improvvisa, cinquanta angeli musicanti sospesi su un cielo di note “. Nel 2005 i libri vengono pubblicati due nuovi progetti editoriali: “Carla Fracci – Immagini”: una monografia fotografica che testimonia la lunga collaborazione con la Fracci, e “Tangomalìa”, i due libri divengono mostre che vengono accolte in Italia e all’estero.

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In cartoons

Mostra fotografica di Lucia Baldini

Il progetto fotografico “In Cartoons”, promosso da Baleri Italia e ispirato alla collezione Cartoons di Luigi Baroli (Compasso d’Oro 1994), ha raccontato in ventotto scatti un viaggio alla scoperta di Firenze e di chi quotidianamente vive la città, fianco a fianco con il celebre paravento. I protagonisti sono professionisti di ambiti differenti, persone che con le loro attività rappresentano modelli positivi e la vera identità del territorio (da Andrea Ferrara direttore di ricerca della Normale di Pisa allo scrittore Vanni Santoni, a Fuad Aziz artista riconosciuto a livello internazionale, alle Dragon Boat, donne impegnate nella ricerca contro il cancro, Sergio Staino in dialogo con il suo Bobo, una stele in omaggio al poeta Mario Luzi e ancora molti altri interessanti personaggi).
Ogni scatto ha raccontato dell’incontro tra Cartoons e un diverso personaggio, ritratti insieme nell’ambiente più emblematico per lo stesso. Cartoons diventa così un interlocutore

Il progetto fotografico “In Cartoons”, promosso da Baleri Italia e ispirato alla collezione Cartoons di Luigi Baroli (Compasso d’Oro 1994), ha raccontato in ventotto scatti un viaggio alla scoperta di Firenze e di chi quotidianamente vive la città, fianco a fianco con il celebre paravento. I protagonisti sono professionisti di ambiti differenti, persone che con le loro attività rappresentano modelli positivi e la vera identità del territorio (da Andrea Ferrara direttore di ricerca della Normale di Pisa allo scrittore Vanni Santoni, a Fuad Aziz artista riconosciuto a livello internazionale, alle Dragon Boat, donne impegnate nella ricerca contro il cancro, Sergio Staino in dialogo con il suo Bobo, una stele in omaggio al poeta Mario Luzi e ancora molti altri interessanti personaggi).
Ogni scatto ha raccontato dell’incontro tra Cartoons e un diverso personaggio, ritratti insieme nell’ambiente più emblematico per lo stesso. Cartoons diventa così un interlocutore con cui ognuno è chiamato a interagire, raccontandosi anche attraverso questo versatile oggetto di design. Omaggio al padre di Cartoons, uno scatto con lo stesso Luigi Baroli, che si aggiunge ai volti toscani e alle loro storie Lavorare trasversalmente su mondi paralleli per creare, grazie ad un fil rouge comune, un racconto inedito, è il modus operandi di Lucia Baldini – riscontrabile anche in altri suoi lavori (come Tangonalìa o il percorso di 12 anni insieme a Carla Fracci).
“Cartoons l’ho scoperto in un bel negozio di design a Firenze. Per questo ho pensato fosse bello far partire il viaggio con Cartoons proprio da questa città” afferma Lucia Baldini “Il progetto In Cartoons è stato esso stesso un viaggio, in cui Cartoons è stato un compagno complice e ludico”.
La mostra “In Cartoons” faceva parte del progetto “Reading in the Square” ed è stato uno degli eventi dell’Estate Fiorentina 2019.

In cartoons

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China Project 2019

China Project 2019 - Progetto RIVA

Il progetto di residenze di artisti cinesi in Italia si è rinnovato nel 2019 con due nuovi artisti selezionati per un periodo di residenza che è andato dal 7 ottobre al 1 novembre 2019 e che rientrava nel Progetto RIVA curato e diretto da Valentina Gensini, in collaborazione con Zhong Art International, realizzato in co-progettazione e con il contributo di Sensi Contemporanei nell’ambito dell’accordo di programma quadro tra Regione Toscana, Mibac Direzione Generale Cinema e Agenzia per la Coesione Territoriale.

I due artisti selezionati nel 2019 sono stati Xiang Zhang e Yanrong Liu.
È stato possibile visitare gli artisti nel loro studio 30 e il 31 ottobre 2019 e seguire così il lavoro che hanno portato avanti durante il loro periodo di residenza, con la possibilità di conversare con loro anche grazie alla collaborazione di Zhong Art International.

Il progetto di residenze di artisti cinesi in Italia si è rinnovato nel 2019 con due nuovi artisti selezionati per un periodo di residenza che è andato dal 7 ottobre al 1 novembre 2019 e che rientrava nel Progetto RIVA curato e diretto da Valentina Gensini, in collaborazione con Zhong Art International, realizzato in co-progettazione e con il contributo di Sensi Contemporanei nell’ambito dell’accordo di programma quadro tra Regione Toscana, Mibac Direzione Generale Cinema e Agenzia per la Coesione Territoriale.

I due artisti selezionati nel 2019 sono stati Xiang Zhang e Yanrong Liu.
È stato possibile visitare gli artisti nel loro studio 30 e il 31 ottobre 2019 e seguire così il lavoro che hanno portato avanti durante il loro periodo di residenza, con la possibilità di conversare con loro anche grazie alla collaborazione di Zhong Art International.

China Project 2019

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Racconto sull'Arno

Progetto RIVA

Attraverso i ricordi spontanei dei cittadini di Firenze, residenti o di passaggio, radicati sul territorio o nuovi arrivati, si è voluto costruire un diario collettivo che avesse come filo conduttore il fiume Arno. I racconti di ciascuno dei partecipanti è andato a ampliare la memoria collettiva sul fiume che, attraversando la città, ha attraversato le vite di tutti i fiorentini.

Racconto sull'Arno

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Cecilia Canziani

Curator Exhibition Autoritratti | Sui Generis

An art critic and curator, her work focuses on contemporary art practice as a questioning of the cultural space and its context and on the teaching of contemporary visual culture. Founding member of the non-profit space 1: 1projects, she teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo and the University of Rome La Sapienza. Since January 2009, together with Ilaria Gianni, she has been artistic director of the Nomas Foundation, Rome.

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SUI GENERIS

RIVA Project 2018

Promoted by the MUS.E Association under the artistic direction of Valentina Gensini

In 2018, the RIVA Project resumed its collaboration with Pelago and Montelupo Fiorentino, involving both the historic centre and the outskirts of Florence. Its action paid special attention to environmental issues, as well as the economic, political, and social context. One of the principal events was Paolo Masi’s solo show QUI with a display of twelve new site-specific artworks produced during his six-month residency at MAD Murate Art District. Montelupo Fiorentino was the centre of activity for Yuval Avital and the ConFusion migrant choir directed by Benedetta Manfriani, for Tempo Reale and its Sentieri del silenzio (Paths of Silence) project carried out at the former psychiatric hospital, and for Radio Papesse with Storie dell’Arno a Montelupo (Histories of the Arno in Montelupo). The other town crossed by the Arno, Pelago, hosted photographer Davide Virdis (who presented an exhibit in a public space and held a workshop in collaboration with Fondazione Studio Marangoni) and Stud

In 2018, the RIVA Project resumed its collaboration with Pelago and Montelupo Fiorentino, involving both the historic centre and the outskirts of Florence. Its action paid special attention to environmental issues, as well as the economic, political, and social context. One of the principal events was Paolo Masi’s solo show QUI with a display of twelve new site-specific artworks produced during his six-month residency at MAD Murate Art District. Montelupo Fiorentino was the centre of activity for Yuval Avital and the ConFusion migrant choir directed by Benedetta Manfriani, for Tempo Reale and its Sentieri del silenzio (Paths of Silence) project carried out at the former psychiatric hospital, and for Radio Papesse with Storie dell’Arno a Montelupo (Histories of the Arno in Montelupo). The other town crossed by the Arno, Pelago, hosted photographer Davide Virdis (who presented an exhibit in a public space and held a workshop in collaboration with Fondazione Studio Marangoni) and Studio ++ collective art group.
The Murate Art District was the venue for lectures and Italian and English classes held by LWCircus and the Department of Architecture from the University of Florence. The 2018 edition of the RIVA Project opened to the Far East thanks to a partnership with Zhong Art International, and offered a residency at MAD to three Chinese artists, who were invited to provide their specific vision of the Arno River.

RIVA Project 2018

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Progetto RIVA 2018

Bettina Buck

Sui Generis | Autoritratti

Bettina Buck (Cologne 1974, Berlin 2018) graduated from the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne and then obtained a Masters in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research focuses on the notion of sculpture as duration and collapse, chance and transformation. Selected exhibitions: 2018 Raumfolgen, Schloß Burgau, Düren; 2016 City Dance Köln; All Italy is silent German Academy of Villa Massimo and Royal Academy of Spain, Rome 2014 Another Interlude, Performance, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, To continue. Notes towards a Sculpture Cycle: Scale, Nomas Foundation, Rome; 2012 A House of Leaves, David Roberts Art Foundation, London; 2011 V&A cycle (performance), performance, Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990: Friday Late: The Postmodern Look, V&A, London; 2010 Platzhalter, Galerie Monitor, Rome; 2007 Reaparecidos, Museo de la Ciudad, Quito. Between 2009 and 2017 she created five Invite projects, a series of exhibitions structured as

Bettina Buck (Cologne 1974, Berlin 2018) graduated from the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne and then obtained a Masters in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research focuses on the notion of sculpture as duration and collapse, chance and transformation. Selected exhibitions: 2018 Raumfolgen, Schloß Burgau, Düren; 2016 City Dance Köln; All Italy is silent German Academy of Villa Massimo and Royal Academy of Spain, Rome 2014 Another Interlude, Performance, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, To continue. Notes towards a Sculpture Cycle: Scale, Nomas Foundation, Rome; 2012 A House of Leaves, David Roberts Art Foundation, London; 2011 V&A cycle (performance), performance, Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990: Friday Late: The Postmodern Look, V&A, London; 2010 Platzhalter, Galerie Monitor, Rome; 2007 Reaparecidos, Museo de la Ciudad, Quito. Between 2009 and 2017 she created five Invite projects, a series of exhibitions structured as a dialogue between her own practice and that of an artist with whose work she felt a relationship of intimacy and confrontation: Cologne, 2009; Berlin 2011; London, 2012; Exeter, 2013; Berlin, 2017.

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Chiara Camoni

Sui Generis | Autoritratti

Chiara Camoni (Piacenza, 1974) lives and works in Fabbiano, Alta Versilia. Graduated in Sculpture at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, she worked for some years with the Institute for the Dissemination of Natural Sciences in Naples. Together with other artists she founded the Magra – Museum of Contemporary Art in Granara. With Cecilia Canziani she is developing the cycle of seminars La Giusta Misura, started at the Murate Progetti Arte Contemporanea in Florence. Recent exhibitions include: Zenzic, with Anna Barham, curated by Caterina Avataneo, Arcade Gallery, London; Sisters, MIMA – Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough; La Vita Materiale. Otto stanze, otto storie, curated by Marina Dacci, Palazzo da Mosto, Reggio Emilia; Il disegno del disegno, curated by Saretto Cincinelli, Museo Novecento, Florence.

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Sui Generis | Autoritratti

Chiara Camoni / Bettina Buck with the words of Cecilia Canziani and a lecture by Chiara Frugoni

Chiara Frugoni’s research has been a source of inspiration throughout the whole project with similarities between the place and the reflections of the seminar and the themes she dealt with, on Chiara of Assisi and on the role of the convent as a place not only of exclusion, but also of emancipation.

The course was developed in three moments: collective readings, a public lecture and finally, to give a rhythm to the thought, the collective action of the work at the loom, to which – over the course of the months – many different hands of craftswomen, artists and curators have alternated, leaving traces of their work, creating a carpet that is also the fulcrum of the exhibition. Since it is not possible to narrate the seminars in the form of an exhibition, Self-portraits represents an attempt to redistribute, through a series of works and further moments of in-depth study, the sense of a constructed path of relationships between people and areas of knowledge, with the

Chiara Frugoni’s research has been a source of inspiration throughout the whole project with similarities between the place and the reflections of the seminar and the themes she dealt with, on Chiara of Assisi and on the role of the convent as a place not only of exclusion, but also of emancipation.

The course was developed in three moments: collective readings, a public lecture and finally, to give a rhythm to the thought, the collective action of the work at the loom, to which – over the course of the months – many different hands of craftswomen, artists and curators have alternated, leaving traces of their work, creating a carpet that is also the fulcrum of the exhibition. Since it is not possible to narrate the seminars in the form of an exhibition, Self-portraits represents an attempt to redistribute, through a series of works and further moments of in-depth study, the sense of a constructed path of relationships between people and areas of knowledge, with the words of books and the works of different and distant authors.

The works by Chiara Camoni and Bettina Buck in the exhibition invite us to reflect on the relationship between body and space, on the way bodies build environments, gestures generate worlds, worlds tell relationships, and relationships are a way to reinvent the ways of being together, producing, exhibiting.
The gestures and voices of those who participated in the meetings are guarded and represented by a carpet presented in the exhibition and woven under the supervision of the weaver Paola Aringes.

Around this object, which is also a place, a corpus of unpublished works by Chiara Camoni makes room for the works made by Bettina Buck between 2010 and 2017.

United by a common reflection on sculpture and a dialogical attitude, the works of the two artists offer themselves as points of view on each other’s work.

Sui Generis | Autoritratti

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Sui Generis | Autoritratti

Prende il via da un ciclo di incontri dedicati all’identità di genere. I pensieri e le azioni condivisi negli incontri hanno costituito la genesi del progetto che si formalizza ora in un singolare percorso espositivo.

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Mohammad Alfaraj

Photographer, video artist

Mohammad Alfaraj’s (b. 1993 in Al Hassa, KSA, where he lives and works), practice centers around his exploration of the relationship between forms and concepts, is visible through superimposed stories in his photographic collages, regrouping and contrasting fiction and non-fiction subjects. Alfaraj’s work also often uses natural materials found in his hometown and combines them with children games and stories from people working the land, as an attempt to create states of co-existence between man and nature with an undertone of hope. A socio-environment activist at heart, his short documentary Lost, 2015 (which was awarded first place in the student category at the Saudi Film Festival), captures the latent state of the notion of temporality for the stateless Arabs living as refugees in their place of birth, and the dehumanizing effect this plays. This “un-homely” context portrays the poisonous beauty of nature when lived as a nemesis under political paralysis.

Alfaraj g

Mohammad Alfaraj’s (b. 1993 in Al Hassa, KSA, where he lives and works), practice centers around his exploration of the relationship between forms and concepts, is visible through superimposed stories in his photographic collages, regrouping and contrasting fiction and non-fiction subjects. Alfaraj’s work also often uses natural materials found in his hometown and combines them with children games and stories from people working the land, as an attempt to create states of co-existence between man and nature with an undertone of hope. A socio-environment activist at heart, his short documentary Lost, 2015 (which was awarded first place in the student category at the Saudi Film Festival), captures the latent state of the notion of temporality for the stateless Arabs living as refugees in their place of birth, and the dehumanizing effect this plays. This “un-homely” context portrays the poisonous beauty of nature when lived as a nemesis under political paralysis.

Alfaraj graduated with a BA in mechanical engineering from KFUPM in 2017. His recent solo show; Still Life and Plastic Dreams, Athr Gallery, Jeddah KSA (2020), and group shows include I Love You Urgently, 21,39 SAC, Jeddah, KSA (2020), Durational Portrait; A brief overview of video art in Saudi Arabia, Athr Gallery, Jeddah, KSA (2020), Sharjah Islamic Festival, Sharjah, UAE (2019). His work has also been shown at the Sharjah Art Foundation; Le Murate Pac, Florence (2019); Athr Gallery, Jeddah (2018); 21,39 Jeddah Arts (2017, 2019); Saudi Film Festival, Dammam (2015) and Dubai International Film Festival (2014). Alfaraj worked as a programmer in both the Saudi Film Festival and the poetry house festival in Dammam.

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The glass between us

Top exhibition of Middle East Now Festival 2019

Mohammad Alfaraj’s first solo exhibition, The Glass Between Us, is an experimentation on sound and image, viewing life through the lens of a child. His new body of work searches for the surprising and the unexpected in daily life, creating a huge mosaic formed by humans and their peers. Presenting works prepared in advance by the artist in Saudi Arabia, alongside new work made with children in Florence during a series of workshops, the exhibition presents a sensory and visual experience that may be simple in form, but depends on a fundamental and important subject around which it tried to create a dialogue.

Middle East Now, MAD Murate Art District and Crossway Foundation Residency in collaboration with PIA Palazzina Indiano Arte della Compagnia Virgilio Sieni.

Mohammad Alfaraj’s first solo exhibition, The Glass Between Us, is an experimentation on sound and image, viewing life through the lens of a child. His new body of work searches for the surprising and the unexpected in daily life, creating a huge mosaic formed by humans and their peers. Presenting works prepared in advance by the artist in Saudi Arabia, alongside new work made with children in Florence during a series of workshops, the exhibition presents a sensory and visual experience that may be simple in form, but depends on a fundamental and important subject around which it tried to create a dialogue.

Middle East Now, MAD Murate Art District and Crossway Foundation Residency in collaboration with PIA Palazzina Indiano Arte della Compagnia Virgilio Sieni.

The glass between us

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The glass between us

Mostra di punta del Middle East Film Festival 2019

The glass between us

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The time of Discretion, a cura di Veronica Caciolli

The time of Discretion è l’ultimo progetto a lungo termine dell’artista fiorentina Lisa Mara Batacchi, che presentò un capitolo del lavoro nella mostra omonima prodotta da MAD nel 2018 all'interno del ciclo Global Identities

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The time of Discretion, a cura di Veronica Caciolli

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Karyn Olivier

Installation artist

Olivier is known for large-scale installations which provoke a disruption of public and private spaces. Familiar forms, altered in function and medium, create uncanny meditations on stagnancy, division and the weight of materiality. Her installations explore the poetics of space and the role of the viewers in shaping their own experience and engagement.

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Because Time In This Place Does Not Obey An Order

Because time in this place does not obey an order

Because time in this place does not obey an order - Black History Month Florence 2019

Curated by BHMF With the partnership of MAD Murate Art District

In collaboration with: Boomker Sound Studios Syracuse University Florence SRISA Vivaio Il Giardiniere Antonella Bundu Chris Norcross

And we can no longer breathe And we can no longer see But, in the escape compagno In the fear, compagno Like in the fight, compagno I will be forever by your side

Collettivo Victor Jara, Le Murate

These were the words written and sung by the musical collective Victor Jara days after the 1974 revolt at le Murate jails. Protest against unfit living conditions and oppressive forces are frequent in sites which separate, either willingly or by force, social groups from the world that surrounds them. The socio-spiritual nature of what is just and human worth is at the root of contemplation in isolation. These feelings originated from the artist’s encounter with Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea, they led the project. For the occasion of the fourth edition of Black History Month Florence

Curated by BHMF With the partnership of MAD Murate Art District

In collaboration with: Boomker Sound Studios Syracuse University Florence SRISA Vivaio Il Giardiniere Antonella Bundu Chris Norcross

And we can no longer breathe And we can no longer see But, in the escape compagno In the fear, compagno Like in the fight, compagno I will be forever by your side

Collettivo Victor Jara, Le Murate

These were the words written and sung by the musical collective Victor Jara days after the 1974 revolt at le Murate jails. Protest against unfit living conditions and oppressive forces are frequent in sites which separate, either willingly or by force, social groups from the world that surrounds them. The socio-spiritual nature of what is just and human worth is at the root of contemplation in isolation. These feelings originated from the artist’s encounter with Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea, they led the project. For the occasion of the fourth edition of Black History Month Florence current Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome Karyn Olivier presents Because Time In This Place Does Not Obey An Order, a series of site specific installations that grapple with the relationship between justice and spirituality. The works engage the history of Le Murate and its transition from a site of spiritual recluse to a carceral space sifting through the continuity and contrast that these histories evoke. Mental health, social critique, isolation, the closeting of history and the conflation of senses set cloistered gardens in dialogue with the steady words of Martin Luther King Jr. writing from a jail cell and reveal traces of life behind closed doors which claims universal rights.

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Because time in this place does not obey an order - Black History Month Florence 2019

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Justin Randolph Thompson | BHMF 2019

Artista e Direttore Black History Month Florence | Residenza d'artista e Mostra 2019

Justin Randolph Thompson
Artista e Direttore Black History Month Florence | Residenza d'artista e Mostra 2019

Justin Randolph Thompson | BHMF 2019

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Lucio Ruvidotti

Fumettista e scrittore

Lucio Ruvidotti, is a young author active in the world of self-productions and on the page of the weekly Pagina99, his recent book portrays “The Prince of Darkness” in a biographical novel full of rhythms, colors and experimentation that gives natural evolution to an icon of the BD Rock necklace.

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Because Time In This Place Does Not Obey An Order

Miles. Assolo a fumetti

Miles. Assolo a fumetti - Black History Month Florence 2019

Miles Davis is one of the most iconic figures of Jazz history. His biography is one of complex evolution and artistic persistance. In many ways jazz is often far removed from the appreciation of younger generations and the magic of its expansion of sound and cultural impact are hence too frequently lost. This exhibition takes on the form of the comic book in order to narrate the life and times of Davis and the impulses behind some of his compositions which have gone on to become jazz standards. Lucio Ruvidotti transformed a love for jazz into a comic book that invites the viewer to an intimate look at this artist and celebrates the impact that he has had on the world of music. These works engage an audience that spans generations bringing this figure to the forefront, as Ruvidotti explains himself:

“I tried to tell story of this figure, the prince of darkness, the great artist, taking advantage of some episodes of his exuberant exaggerated life. But above all the goal was to show, th

Miles Davis is one of the most iconic figures of Jazz history. His biography is one of complex evolution and artistic persistance. In many ways jazz is often far removed from the appreciation of younger generations and the magic of its expansion of sound and cultural impact are hence too frequently lost. This exhibition takes on the form of the comic book in order to narrate the life and times of Davis and the impulses behind some of his compositions which have gone on to become jazz standards. Lucio Ruvidotti transformed a love for jazz into a comic book that invites the viewer to an intimate look at this artist and celebrates the impact that he has had on the world of music. These works engage an audience that spans generations bringing this figure to the forefront, as Ruvidotti explains himself:

“I tried to tell story of this figure, the prince of darkness, the great artist, taking advantage of some episodes of his exuberant exaggerated life. But above all the goal was to show, through the language of comics, his music, incredibly evolved from the forties to the nineties.”

The comic strip released in 2018 by Edizioni BD tells the story through eight chapters entitled with the names of some of his most important compositions. Each part of the book is also distinguished by a different use of the color and composition of the table. Alongside the original drawings made by the artist, the exhibition shows a series of cartoon prints, accompanied by the music of Miles Davis that pervades the Emeroteca delle Murate room.

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Incontri Confluenti

Progetto RIVA

Nell’autunno 2017 i fotografi Davide Virdis, Martino Marangoni e Giuseppe Toscano hanno elaborato un progetto originale per San Francesco, Comune di Pelago, e per Pontassieve. Il tema principale di questo lavoro era il rapporto tra il fiume Sieve e la comunità. Questo gruppo di ricerca ha prodotto un lavoro originale sul territorio tra Pelago e Pontassieve presentato durante la festa del patrono a Pelago-Pontassieve il 29 settembre 2018, in una esposizione pubblica delle fotografie prodotte. L’esposizione nello spazio pubblico, sui pannelli di affissione che permeano la dimensione urbana, viene proposta dunque in una dimensione di immediata e spontanea accessibilità. I tre autori hanno inoltre condotto un workshop sul campo con quattro giovani fotografe.

Incontri Confluenti

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Ossessioni Fluviali

Progetto RIVA

Nel 2018 i fotografi Paolo Woods ed Edoardo Delille sono stati inviati a partecipare al Progetto RIVA con un workshop dedicato a giovani fotografi sul rapporto fiume e comunità, incentrato sul territorio di Pelago e Pontassieve, a cui hanno dedicato poi anche una produzione artistica inedita, che verrà esposta in occasione della grande mostra dedicata alla triennale del Progetto RIVA.

Ossessioni Fluviali

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Paolo Masi

Progetto RIVA

Born in Florence in 1933, has been active since the 1950s. He studied first in Milan, then in other areas of Europe where he matched wits with other talents and came into contact with the work of the great European abstractionists from whom he learned the lessons of strict formal rigour. In the 1960s, his production shifted from abstract-geometric works to compositions showing an absolute sensibility for colour and, in the 1970s, to research and use of new materials. His works of this period are characterised by use of corrugated cardboard. In the works of the 1980s, he undertook intense research into colour in relation to space, creating works from which colour as a strong aspect of his personality is easily deduced. In the 2000s, Masi began using such new materials as Plexiglas, with which he has created rectangular and round works in brilliant colours. Since his early experiences with Informale painting and concrete abstractionism, Masi’s work has been articulated, complex and div

Born in Florence in 1933, has been active since the 1950s. He studied first in Milan, then in other areas of Europe where he matched wits with other talents and came into contact with the work of the great European abstractionists from whom he learned the lessons of strict formal rigour. In the 1960s, his production shifted from abstract-geometric works to compositions showing an absolute sensibility for colour and, in the 1970s, to research and use of new materials. His works of this period are characterised by use of corrugated cardboard. In the works of the 1980s, he undertook intense research into colour in relation to space, creating works from which colour as a strong aspect of his personality is easily deduced. In the 2000s, Masi began using such new materials as Plexiglas, with which he has created rectangular and round works in brilliant colours. Since his early experiences with Informale painting and concrete abstractionism, Masi’s work has been articulated, complex and diversified at the technical-linguistic level. His works become conceptual markers in the landscape and, in the case of his Polaroids, act as analytic studies of urban codes. His intensive activity continues and is acknowledged both in Italy and abroad; his works are featured in the collections of MART of Rovereto, the Galleria d’Arte Moderna of Palazzo Pitti in Florence and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna of Turin, the Museo Pecci of Prato and the Museo Novecento of Florence. His works are all characterised by an unceasing experimental evolution capable of extending even to broad urban spaces.

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Paolo Masi

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Progetto RIVA

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The Time of discretion. Chapter one

Global Identity

The time of Discretion. Chapter one di Lisa Batacchi, curated by Veronica Caciolli closes the cycle GLOBAL IDENTITIES. Postcolonial and cross-cultural Narratives curated by Valentina Gensini. The Time of Discretion is presented as a metaphorical and necessary retrospective on a cycle of works developed specifically on the subject of discretion and intended as its first chapter, over the last two years. The show consists of two works made in the south of China together with the Hmong people and about twenty new works expressly produced for this occasion, including installations, tapestries, videos, photographs, documentary archives and symbolic finds. The Time of Discretion is a transnational project in progress, which opens up complex and extremely sensitive issues that widely extend the boundaries of art. The exhibition intersects experience and representation, dramatically confronting the East and the West, advancing a dense theoretical scenario in relation to the processes of global

The time of Discretion. Chapter one di Lisa Batacchi, curated by Veronica Caciolli closes the cycle GLOBAL IDENTITIES. Postcolonial and cross-cultural Narratives curated by Valentina Gensini. The Time of Discretion is presented as a metaphorical and necessary retrospective on a cycle of works developed specifically on the subject of discretion and intended as its first chapter, over the last two years. The show consists of two works made in the south of China together with the Hmong people and about twenty new works expressly produced for this occasion, including installations, tapestries, videos, photographs, documentary archives and symbolic finds. The Time of Discretion is a transnational project in progress, which opens up complex and extremely sensitive issues that widely extend the boundaries of art. The exhibition intersects experience and representation, dramatically confronting the East and the West, advancing a dense theoretical scenario in relation to the processes of globalization. The project begins with the participation of Lisa Batacchi at the Land Art Mongolia Biennal of 2016, whose theme to be discussed concerned the interpretation of the axis that divides the sky from the earth. To do so, the artist reached Guizhou, a mountain village in southern China where the ancient Hmong people (originating from the Siberian-Mongol area), observe a traditional ritual daily. In particular, they hold a specific practice, considered divinatory, that of natural indigo dyeing. A large tent created by the artist, manually, slowly and discretely, together with the Hmong women, was later carried in a procession towards the sacred mountain Altan Ovoo, for the inaugural performance of the Biennale. The horse-cow represented there, shows a symbology derived from a Chinese oracle of the classical tradition, questioned preliminarily by the artist, whose sentences are governed by a logic of randomness, through the repeated tossing of coins. A randomness clearly understood as not accidental but secretly determined, also deliberately regulates the progressive behavior of Lisa Batacchi. A subsequent experience with this people allowed her to dye another fabric, which still draws on the meanings expressed in the fortieth and in the second hexagram of the I-Ching (The liberation – The receptive). Alongside these, there are further twenty multimedia works, produced for this exhibition and shown in preview for the Le Murate space. The collaboration with different types of mastery, activity that characterizes one of the directions of the project, has been extended by the artist to the local area, first in the city of Florence, where through the ancient looms of the Lisio Foundation, she has been able to realize five fabric tapestries. A toli, an amulet usually worn and used by Mongolian shamans, has instead been reproduced on a large scale, for performative as well as exhibition purposes, in parternship with the la Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa. A new batik dyed with guado (ancient vegetable color) will be realized during the summer together with Natural Color Culture in the Marche region and premiered at Le Murate on September the 4th. The exhibition is also enriched by four photographic series that on one hand document the performance for the Land Art Mongolia Biennal, the backstage material of this first chapter and a collection that represents the beauty, the persistence of tradition and the fragility of a world partially isolated, on the threshold of globalization but still magically possible. Eventually, a video, which anticipates an upcoming feature film, retraces the landscape, relational and cultural stages of Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and southern China, in which poetry, imagery and narration become confused. June 7th h 5.30 p.m. introduction to exhibition by Veronica Caciolli curator, Valentina Gensini artistic director Le murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea and the artist Lisa Batacchi h 6.30 p.m. vernissage

In particular, they hold a specific practice, considered divinatory, that of natural indigo dyeing. A large tent created by the artist, manually, slowly and discretely, together with the Hmong women, was later carried in a procession towards the sacred mountain Altan Ovoo, for the inaugural performance of the Biennale.
The horse-cow represented there, shows a symbology derived from a Chinese oracle of the classical tradition, questioned preliminarily by the artist, whose sentences are governed by a logic of randomness, through the repeated tossing of coins. A randomness clearly understood as not accidental but secretly determined, also deliberately regulates the progressive behavior of Lisa Batacchi.
A subsequent experience with this people allowed her to dye another fabric, which still draws on the meanings expressed in the fortieth and in the second hexagram of the I-Ching (The liberation – The receptive).
Alongside these, there are further twenty multimedia works, produced for this exhibition and shown in preview for the Le Murate space.

The collaboration with different types of mastery, activity that characterizes one of the directions of the project, has been extended by the artist to the local area, first in the city of Florence, where through the ancient looms of the Lisio Foundation, she has been able to realize five fabric tapestries.
A toli, an amulet usually worn and used by Mongolian shamans, has instead been reproduced on a large scale, for performative as well as exhibition purposes, in parternship with the la Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa.
A new batik dyed with guado (ancient vegetable color) will be realized during the summer together with Natural Color Culture in the Marche region and premiered at Le Murate on September the 4th.

The exhibition is also enriched by four photographic series that on one hand document the performance for the Land Art Mongolia Biennal, the backstage material of this first chapter and a collection that represents the beauty, the persistence of tradition and the fragility of a world partially isolated, on the threshold of globalization but still magically possible.
Eventually, a video, which anticipates an upcoming feature film, retraces the landscape, relational and cultural stages of Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and southern China, in which poetry, imagery and narration become confused.

Il progetto nell’ambito di ToscanaInContemporanea 2018

The Time of discretion. Chapter one

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Paolo Masi

The works on show engage the entire monumental complex, from the interior spaces of Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea to the public spaces of the complex such as the facade, the fountain in Piazza Madonna della Neve, the interior of the Semiottagono.

The former cells will host a series of site-specific installations that invite the visitor to reflect on the concepts of confinement and meditation.

The works – conceived by the artist to intentionally make use of ‘hard’ materials such as nails and steel wool, or to scratch and ‘mark’ the walls of the complex – are founded on actions of chromatic matrix and others of materic origin, consistently with the lengthy and structured path through art that has characterised his entire production. His actions in/on the spaces thus become conceptual markers along a course of serried, highly coherent research that doubles back to experimental practices first launched in the Seventies, now presented in a new guise an

The works on show engage the entire monumental complex, from the interior spaces of Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea to the public spaces of the complex such as the facade, the fountain in Piazza Madonna della Neve, the interior of the Semiottagono.

The former cells will host a series of site-specific installations that invite the visitor to reflect on the concepts of confinement and meditation.

The works – conceived by the artist to intentionally make use of ‘hard’ materials such as nails and steel wool, or to scratch and ‘mark’ the walls of the complex – are founded on actions of chromatic matrix and others of materic origin, consistently with the lengthy and structured path through art that has characterised his entire production. His actions in/on the spaces thus become conceptual markers along a course of serried, highly coherent research that doubles back to experimental practices first launched in the Seventies, now presented in a new guise and with an authentic odour, rigorously measured against the spaces.

The exhibition also presents two never-before-seen Polaroid cycles, one dedicated to Le Murate, a space of isolation and reflection; the other to the Arno river, an open, changeling ambience, remindful of a world and a life outside the walls. ‘What most struck me was the aura of the site, where the stone walls carry evident signs of many passages, of cloistered nuns and prisoners,’ Paolo Masi has said. ‘With the Polaroid shots, I have tried to render this emotional visibility. The exhibition centres on pointing up the peculiarities of this space, so different from a gallery or a museum, which, as a production site, allows the imagination room to express itself freely and totally. On my very first visit here, I decided to give concrete form to feelings and emotions on two different planes: the dramatic, on the third floor, where the cells are linked by an extremely coercive history; while on the lower floor, the incised white of the wall, the two large cartons and the three folded papers suggest a geometry that is alternative to the sense of physical ‘enclosure’ that was the original function of the site.’

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From the meeting between Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea and Paolo Masi, a site specific project was born, which the Florentine artist wanted to dedicate to this unique place, a space of memory, imprisonment, voluntary but also forced imprisonment. Thus was born "Here. Paolo Masi" an important monographic exhibition composed of twelve monumental works specially conceived and created for the spaces of the Murate. The exhibition project is the result of a direct comparison between the artist, the environment and the history of the city complex under the sign of a new production.

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Livia Dubon

Curator

Livia Dubon is a London-Florence based art writer and independent curator. Her curatorial practice, interweaves artist commissions, research and participatory practices encouraging innovative ideas and interdisciplinary dialogue between creative individuals. Her recent research focuses on the relationship between concepts of national identity, collective memory, and representation. She is particularly interested in how contemporary artists’ practices decolonize institutions and which processes foster a decolonization of knowledge. Exhibition she curated are “Negotiating Amensia” (Murate PAC, 28 Nov – 09 Dec 2015) and “The Impossible Black Tulip” (Murate PAC 3 May-3Jun.2018).

Livia successfully completed three Masters Degrees; in Museums and Gallery Studies (Newcastle, UK, 2009), in International Management of the Arts (Genoa, Italy, 2005), and in Art History (Parma, Italy, 2004). She is Ph.D. candidate at Kingston University London with the title “Italian Blackness: D

Livia Dubon is a London-Florence based art writer and independent curator. Her curatorial practice, interweaves artist commissions, research and participatory practices encouraging innovative ideas and interdisciplinary dialogue between creative individuals. Her recent research focuses on the relationship between concepts of national identity, collective memory, and representation. She is particularly interested in how contemporary artists’ practices decolonize institutions and which processes foster a decolonization of knowledge. Exhibition she curated are “Negotiating Amensia” (Murate PAC, 28 Nov – 09 Dec 2015) and “The Impossible Black Tulip” (Murate PAC 3 May-3Jun.2018).

Livia successfully completed three Masters Degrees; in Museums and Gallery Studies (Newcastle, UK, 2009), in International Management of the Arts (Genoa, Italy, 2005), and in Art History (Parma, Italy, 2004). She is Ph.D. candidate at Kingston University London with the title “Italian Blackness: Decolonising the former Museum of the Colonies“. Livia writes for Artkernel, Artribune, and Kritica. She has also participated in international conferences as a guest speaker to disseminate her curatorial and research work such as LYNX Imaging The Past/Collecting The Future, 22-25 June 2016, Lucca (Italy) and Curatorial Challenges, The University of Copenhagen. 26-27 May 2016.

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Ka Long Wong

Sculptor and teacher

A Son of Art (his father is a watercolour painter) Wong was born in Portuguese Macau in 1977. In 1996, he studied Sculpture at The Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, and gained a Master’s Degree in 2003. During his university life, he travelled The Silk Road and was inspired by what he saw there. Wong’s practice, both pedagogical and his production of art, are deeply informed by his experience of living in a colony where the acts of aggression and ‘civilization’ nurture each other. Long is currently lecturing at the Polytechnic University of Macau.

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The impossible black tulip

Global Identity

The Impossible Black Tulip, third episode of the GLOBAL IDENTITIES Postcolonial and cross-cultural Narrative cycle, is a project that finds its reason in the exploration of the concept of belonging. The exhibition is named after the earliest known Chinese world map that unites western and eastern cartographic views and style. Maps and identities have a deep connection: As a crucial visualization of national borders, mapping has been linked to the political construction of national identity. However this map, symbol of cultural hybridity, confuses our concept of identity and, along with its rarity and exoticism, it was called the Impossible Black Tulip. Through this exhibition and participatory actions, this event wants to contribute to the post-colonial debates on hybridity, decolonization and fluid identity. In this reagard Macau represents an unique case-study: a Portuguese colony for 400 years, after the return to China in 1999 as a special administrative region (SAR) , identity mak

The Impossible Black Tulip, third episode of the GLOBAL IDENTITIES Postcolonial and cross-cultural Narrative cycle, is a project that finds its reason in the exploration of the concept of belonging. The exhibition is named after the earliest known Chinese world map that unites western and eastern cartographic views and style. Maps and identities have a deep connection: As a crucial visualization of national borders, mapping has been linked to the political construction of national identity. However this map, symbol of cultural hybridity, confuses our concept of identity and, along with its rarity and exoticism, it was called the Impossible Black Tulip. Through this exhibition and participatory actions, this event wants to contribute to the post-colonial debates on hybridity, decolonization and fluid identity. In this reagard Macau represents an unique case-study: a Portuguese colony for 400 years, after the return to China in 1999 as a special administrative region (SAR) , identity making in Macao has been a process of incorporating instead of repressing or eliminating the identities of “the other”. How is the concept of hybridity related to belonging? Together with the local Chinese community (one of the biggest communities in the EU) and three artists from Macau, Eric FOK, Gue Jie CAI, and Ka Long WONG we will investigate the different ways we can reflect on these concepts. We will inquire as to the legitimacy of basing an identity on only certain specific aspects of local colonial history, the relationship between belonging and ownership, and finally, the relationship between the memory of an area and the “modern” capitalist appropriation of the landscape. The various anti-migratory events and the increasing success of souverainiste parties have brought to light an urgent need to analyse the historical racialised constructions of identity in order to foster contemporary debate on a more fluid concept of identity. How can we define an “identity” today?

Artistic Direction: Valentina Gensini Curating: Livia Dubon Organization: Mus.e, Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea Coordinator: Sandy Chan Interpretation Panels: Veronica Gabriele e Livia Dubon Graphic Design: Athos de Martino Sponsor: Instituto Cultural do Governo da R.A.E. de Macau (I.C.M.), the Institute Confucio Florence, Macau Visual Students Art Zone Supporters: the Camões Institute of Lisbon, the Department of Languages, Literatures and Studies Interculturali of the University of Florence and the “Fernando Pessoa” Chair Contributions: Association Chì-na, Dragon Film Festival, Permanent workshop for the Peace – District 5, Florence.

The impossible black tulip

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Guo Jie Cai

Installation artist, painter, curator

Guo Jie Cai is an installation artist, teacher and curator. Born in Hsin Chu, Taiwan, he moved to Macau in 2011. Cai was awarded a BA in Painting and a MFA in Installation at National Taiwan University of Arts. He now focuses on painting, art installation, art curating and teaching. He is currently lecturer at the School of Arts of Macau Polytechnic Institute; Art instructor at Institute for Tourism Studies; Visual-Art instructor at Macau Art Museum; Youth member of Macau Artists Society; vice director of Art For All Society; and art consultant at Wind Box Community Development. The most recent solo exhibitions include “As Memory Whispers”, Nan Vam Lake Art Gallery , Macau Artists Society , Macau; “Between States of Mind –Cai Guo Jie Solo Exhibition”, New Tile House, Innoart, Taiwan; “Cores da cidade de Macau”, Rui Cunha Foundation Gallery, Macau, China

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The impossible black tulip

Ciclo Global Identity

The impossible black tulip

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Parola di Curatore, Le Opere e i Giorni | Veronica Caciolli, Curatore

With the column #LeOpereeiGiorni we invited artists, curators and intellectuals to share reflections on their work and the current moment.
Today we listen to Luigia Lonardelli, Curator MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Arts

Parola di Curatore, Le Opere e i Giorni
Veronica Caciolli, Curatore

Parola di Curatore, Le Opere e i Giorni | Veronica Caciolli, Curatore

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Lisa Batacchi

Artista visiva

Lisa Mara Batacchi si forma al Polimoda di Firenze con una lurea in fashion design lavorando in seguito per vari marchi di alta moda, in particolare per Vivienne Westwood a Londra. Successivamente consegue una laurea in Arti Visive presso l’Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze. Le sue opere sono state esposte in numerose mostre personali e collettive, fra cui ricordiamo: 2°Something Else Cairo Biennale, Murate Art District (personale) a Firenze, Manifesta12 evento collaterale a Palermo, Art & Globalization Pavillion durante la 57a Biennale di Venezia, Dust space gallery a Milano, 4°Land Art Mongolia Biennale a Ulan Bator, Textile Arts Center a New York, Villa Ada a Roma, Clark House Initiative (personale) a Bombay, Villa Pacchiani a Pisa, riss (e) Zentrum (personale) a Varese, Mac, n a Pistoia. È vincitrice, tra gli altri, del premio italiano Movin’up per giovani artisti italiani all’estero. Negli ultimi anni ha tenuto laboratori e collaborato a progetti educativ

Lisa Mara Batacchi si forma al Polimoda di Firenze con una lurea in fashion design lavorando in seguito per vari marchi di alta moda, in particolare per Vivienne Westwood a Londra. Successivamente consegue una laurea in Arti Visive presso l’Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze. Le sue opere sono state esposte in numerose mostre personali e collettive, fra cui ricordiamo: 2°Something Else Cairo Biennale, Murate Art District (personale) a Firenze, Manifesta12 evento collaterale a Palermo, Art & Globalization Pavillion durante la 57a Biennale di Venezia, Dust space gallery a Milano, 4°Land Art Mongolia Biennale a Ulan Bator, Textile Arts Center a New York, Villa Ada a Roma, Clark House Initiative (personale) a Bombay, Villa Pacchiani a Pisa, riss (e) Zentrum (personale) a Varese, Mac, n a Pistoia. È vincitrice, tra gli altri, del premio italiano Movin’up per giovani artisti italiani all’estero. Negli ultimi anni ha tenuto laboratori e collaborato a progetti educativi con Palazzo Strozzi a Firenze, con ACAF Foundation a Shanghai, con Siena Art Institute, con Lottozero a Prato.

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The Time of discretion. Chapter one

Ciclo Global Identity

The Time of discretion. Chapter one

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Daria Filardo

Curatrice e storica dell'arte

Daria Filardo Storica dell’arte e curatrice indipendente, vive a Firenze. Insegna Contemporary art practices e Art Practicum al Master in studio Arts (Saci Firenze), Visual Arts al Master in Arts Management allo IED – Firenze, dove coordina il final project. Ha insegnato inoltre dal 2001 al 2011 Storia dell’arte contemporanea alla Fondazione Studio Marangoni. Dal 1998 al 2000 ha lavorato come curatrice al Palazzo delle Papesse di Siena e dal 2001 è curatrice indipendente. Scrive su cataloghi e su riviste. Si interessa a progetti a lunga scadenza che articola negli anni, come ‘‘Distanza come identità?”.
Selezione mostre curate: Do you remember, Aleksander Duravcevic, (saggio in catalogo) Montenegro pavillion, 56.ma Biennale di Venezia, 2015; Can I reach you?, Valerio Rocco Orlando, Bianco/Valente, Claudia Losi, insieme a Pietro Gaglianò e Angel Moel Garcia, Tenuta dello Scompiglio, Lucca, ottobre 2015; Filling the void – Walker Keith Jernigan, residenza e mo

Daria Filardo Storica dell’arte e curatrice indipendente, vive a Firenze. Insegna Contemporary art practices e Art Practicum al Master in studio Arts (Saci Firenze), Visual Arts al Master in Arts Management allo IED – Firenze, dove coordina il final project. Ha insegnato inoltre dal 2001 al 2011 Storia dell’arte contemporanea alla Fondazione Studio Marangoni. Dal 1998 al 2000 ha lavorato come curatrice al Palazzo delle Papesse di Siena e dal 2001 è curatrice indipendente. Scrive su cataloghi e su riviste. Si interessa a progetti a lunga scadenza che articola negli anni, come ‘‘Distanza come identità?”.
Selezione mostre curate: Do you remember, Aleksander Duravcevic, (saggio in catalogo) Montenegro pavillion, 56.ma Biennale di Venezia, 2015; Can I reach you?, Valerio Rocco Orlando, Bianco/Valente, Claudia Losi, insieme a Pietro Gaglianò e Angel Moel Garcia, Tenuta dello Scompiglio, Lucca, ottobre 2015; Filling the void – Walker Keith Jernigan, residenza e mostra personale, Boccanera Gallery, Trento, maggio 2014; Placing Space/Spacing Place- Walker Keith Jernigan, Xenos, Firenze, 2014; Material Marks (as far as I can reach) Sophie Tottie, Giacomo Guidi, Milano, maggio 2014; Arte torna arte, con Bruno Corà e Franca Falletti, Galleria dell’Accademia, Firenze, maggio – dicembre 2012; Cartabianca Firenze, con Lorenzo Bruni e Pietro Gaglianò, Museo of Villa Croce, Genova, 2011; Motherland/Homeland. Simon Roberts, Ex3, Firenze, 2010; Sahara chronicle. Ursula Biemann (distance for identity?) careof/DOCVA, Milano, 2010; Fuori Contesto – public art project, con Cecilia Guida, Bologna/Milano/Manifesta7 Bz-Tn-Rov, 2008.

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Victoria DeBlassie

Artista interdisciplinare

Victoria DeBlassie è nata e cresciuta ad Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ha studiato presso The University of New Mexico nel 2009 e il California College of the Arts nel 2011. Di recente, ha ricevuto una borsa di studio Fulbright per l’Italia per l’anno accademico 2012-2013. Ha partecipato a numerose residenze artistiche, come F.AIR a Firenze, Italia, Atelier Real a Lisbona, Portogallo, Lakkos AIR a Heraklion, Crete, e più recentemente Apulia Land Arts Festival a Margherita di Savoia, Italia. Ha esposto a livello nazionale e internazionale, in sedi tra cui [AC] 2 Gallery di Albuquerque, NM, The de Young Museum di San Francisco, CA, e la Fondazione Biagiotti Progetto a Firenze, Italia. http://www.victoriadeblassie.com

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Maria Nissan

Artista installativa

Maria Nissan è un’artista installativa diplomata allo Studio Arts College International con una laurea in educazione artistica e una in disegno e pittura alla University of Georgia. Durante il suo soggiorno a Firenze Maria si è dedicata alla realizzazione di installazioni immersive e sensoriali. Il suo lavoro crea un’esperienza attraverso la trasformazione e manipolazione del riciclo organico dei materiali e coinvolgendo tutti i sensi. “Il mio lavoro vuole investigare i temi centrali dell’identità culturale e il concetto etereo di casa. Provenendo da una famiglia irachena e assira, con una educazione di stampo americano, il mio contesto genera il mio desiderio di creare progetti artistici multiculturali. Questi progetti legano insieme tendenze diverse e a volte opposte nel mio essere come i paesi nei quali ho sviluppato il mio lavoro.” www.marianissan.com

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Interpretation of a seed

Global Identities

By Maria Nissan and Victoria DeBlassie curated by Daria Filardo There are myriad ways of tackling global issues, complicated balances, and politics that involve different areas of the world, and one of these is a physical and conceptual reflection on coffee. Coffee—a drink native to Ethiopia and spread over hundreds of years across many different parts of the planet— transnationalally combines different cultures and can just as well be symbol of a relaxed and shared moment of bonding as an element that underlines exploitation and extremely controversial global trade policies. It’s along this line that the presented work of Maria Nissan and Victoria DeBlassie operates, two young artists who have been collaborating on this theme for months. The intervention they’ve proposed for the Murate space takes ‘Interpretation of a Seed’ as its title and it is the result of questions that the artists have been asking themselves as well as of a common practice that began with the collect

By Maria Nissan and Victoria DeBlassie curated by Daria Filardo There are myriad ways of tackling global issues, complicated balances, and politics that involve different areas of the world, and one of these is a physical and conceptual reflection on coffee. Coffee—a drink native to Ethiopia and spread over hundreds of years across many different parts of the planet— transnationalally combines different cultures and can just as well be symbol of a relaxed and shared moment of bonding as an element that underlines exploitation and extremely controversial global trade policies. It’s along this line that the presented work of Maria Nissan and Victoria DeBlassie operates, two young artists who have been collaborating on this theme for months. The intervention they’ve proposed for the Murate space takes ‘Interpretation of a Seed’ as its title and it is the result of questions that the artists have been asking themselves as well as of a common practice that began with the collection of coffee grounds used both in the moka machine as well as in American drip coffee that have become the raw material that once mixed with salt and flour and baked in the oven have given rise to sculptural objects. The artists have also collected the burlap sacks in which the coffee seeds themselves are transported and have been transformed into installational elements in the space. These elements, each used differently by each artist, are the common ground of a formal thought developed throughout the exhibition space. ‘Interpretation of a Seed’ takes form in two rooms on the ground floor of the Murate exhibition space, two similar but different places. One space—Maria Nissan’s—is activated by more sensorial and material characteristics with the presence of organic elements like sugar, the coffee sculptures, and the burlap sacks as chairs that invite a moment of relaxation and sharing, coffee culture viewed as an associative experience. The elements of the installation allude to the Middle Eastern culture of the artist (of Iraqi origins), to American culture, mixed with the Italian aspect where the presence of coffee is an obvious and cultural element of identity. The other room, created by Victoria DeBlassie, despite having the same elements in common with the first room, is more reminiscent of a certain type of ‘indie’ coffee house (apparently more respectful of the production processes but often in reality managed by multinationals like Starbucks), which is the case for Ethiocha Koffiehius, the name that the artist thought of for her space. Here the material elements converge in an action of conceptual protest. Elements and dates are collected on the chalkboards that underline the most complicated aspects of global trade, and affixed to the walls are images and posters that seem to allude to slogans used to capture consumers but that play with the ambiguity of the proposed messages that shifts the attention onto the hidden aspects and manipulated information. The double installation envelops the visitor both from a sensorial, material, and olfactory point of view as well as a space for thought and coming together. Starting from coffee, the two artists have spanned history and diverse geographies, reactivating our awareness of cultural, historical, and political realities, and all this just from the simple and ordinary gesture of having a coffee.

Interpretation of a seed

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Interpretation of a seed

Ciclo Global Identity

Interpretation of a seed

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Matteo Innocenti

Curator

Curator and art critic. As a curator he collaborates with museums and institutions (including: Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato, Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, Center for Contemporary Arts in Vilnius in Lithuania, Museum of Villa Croce in Genoa) with no profit spaces, Italian and foreign private galleries and artistic residences. As a critic he has written and writes for art magazines such as Artribune, Exibart, Flash Art, ATPDiary and for catalogs and magazines.

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A certain identity

Ciclo Global Identities

Arnas Anskaitis, Ignas Krunglevičius, Andrej Polukord, Ieva Rojūtė curated by Matteo Innocenti in collaboration with Adrius Pocius, Alesia and Yuliya Savitskaya As Second episode of The GLOBAL IDENTITIES cicle, A certain identity is a project that brings together artists of different nationalities to express themselves about identity issues. The first exhibition of the project, presents the young Lithuanian artists Arnas Anskaitis, Ignas Krunglevičius, Andrej Polukord, Ieva Rojūtė. The certain , as an integral part of the title, in Italian “certa”, takes on a double meaning: as an adjective it is synonymous with certainty, the identity which we can undoubtedly recognize, as an alternative it is also an indefinite adjective, without quality or quantity, indicating an identity that is possible among many others. Four artists of a particular nationality are chosen by the curator of the project in collaboration with the museums or the Fine Arts Academy of the respective c

Arnas Anskaitis, Ignas Krunglevičius, Andrej Polukord, Ieva Rojūtė curated by Matteo Innocenti in collaboration with Adrius Pocius, Alesia and Yuliya Savitskaya As Second episode of The GLOBAL IDENTITIES cicle, A certain identity is a project that brings together artists of different nationalities to express themselves about identity issues. The first exhibition of the project, presents the young Lithuanian artists Arnas Anskaitis, Ignas Krunglevičius, Andrej Polukord, Ieva Rojūtė. The certain , as an integral part of the title, in Italian “certa”, takes on a double meaning: as an adjective it is synonymous with certainty, the identity which we can undoubtedly recognize, as an alternative it is also an indefinite adjective, without quality or quantity, indicating an identity that is possible among many others. Four artists of a particular nationality are chosen by the curator of the project in collaboration with the museums or the Fine Arts Academy of the respective countries to “represent”, according to the particular inclination of their research and culture of origin, the factor of identity through such exhibition. The history and geographic location of Lithuania makes it significant both for the question of identity and for that of the borders and relations within the continent. Since the Republic of Lithuania, like the other Baltic countries, has built itself in a dual movement of independence and annexation, between Russia and Europe – where is been a member since 2004 -. 2018 also marks the centenary of the nation’s independence, which took place in February 1918 and The constitution of the Republic. Vernissage e artists talk: 5 aprile ore 17.30. With the collaboration of Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea – Mus.e and with TUM associazione culturale (Italia/Italy), Fondazione per lo sviluppo della cultura dell’istruzione della persona (Bielorussia/Belarus), Vilnius Pataphysic Institute (Lituania/Lithuania). Con il patrocinio dell’Ambasciata della Repubblica di Lituana nella Repubblica Italiana e del Consolato della Repubblica Lituana di Firenze.

A certain identity

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A certain identity

Ciclo Global Identities

A certain identity

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Barthélémy Toguo

Artist

Barthélémy Toguo è nato in Camerun nel 1967 e ha studiato Belle Arti ad Abidjan, in Costa d’Avorio. Si è trasferito in Europa nel 1993 e ha iniziato a esibirsi e fare performance mentre terminava i suoi studi a Grenoble (Francia), poi a Dusseldorf (Germania).
La geografia politica e i confini personali sono stati un argomento implicito nel suo lavoro in studio e esplicito nelle sue performance. Da un lato, i suoi acquerelli forniscono un forte impatto visivo, utilizzando un repertorio limitato di immagini e colori per rappresentare un mondo onirico di metamorfosi umane, animali e vegetali. D’altra parte, la realizzazione delle sue installazioni su larga scala è generalmente approssimativa e rapida e sottolinea i conflitti, i paradossi e l’estremismo dell’uomo. Le sue installazioni possono essere visti come un’inversione metaforica dello storico saccheggio dell’Africa subita durante il periodo coloniale.
Toguo ha recentemente tenuto una mostra pe

Barthélémy Toguo è nato in Camerun nel 1967 e ha studiato Belle Arti ad Abidjan, in Costa d’Avorio. Si è trasferito in Europa nel 1993 e ha iniziato a esibirsi e fare performance mentre terminava i suoi studi a Grenoble (Francia), poi a Dusseldorf (Germania).
La geografia politica e i confini personali sono stati un argomento implicito nel suo lavoro in studio e esplicito nelle sue performance. Da un lato, i suoi acquerelli forniscono un forte impatto visivo, utilizzando un repertorio limitato di immagini e colori per rappresentare un mondo onirico di metamorfosi umane, animali e vegetali. D’altra parte, la realizzazione delle sue installazioni su larga scala è generalmente approssimativa e rapida e sottolinea i conflitti, i paradossi e l’estremismo dell’uomo. Le sue installazioni possono essere visti come un’inversione metaforica dello storico saccheggio dell’Africa subita durante il periodo coloniale.
Toguo ha recentemente tenuto una mostra personale, “The Sick Opera”, al Palais de Tokyo di Parigi. La mostra ha incluso il suo lavoro dal 1999 al 2004. Ha esposto in molti altri prestigiosi musei, gallerie e Biennali a livello internazionale come il Bass Museum of Art di Miami, il Centre George Pompidou di Parigi, lo Houston Museum of Art, il Guangdong Museum of Art , Il Museo Migros di Zurigo e il Palazzo Strozzi di Firenze da quattro anni. Test di prova per mostre personali e collettive selezionate.

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Il viaggio immaginario, Barthélémy Toguo

Il viaggio immaginario

Barthélémy Toguo

Nell’ambito di un semestre dedicato alla tematica del post coloniale Murate Art District ha prodotto una mostra inedita dal titolo Il viaggio immaginario di Barthélémy Toguo a cura di Janine Gaelle Dieudji e Justin Randolph Thompson, realizzata in collaborazione con Black History Month Florence e Institut Francais Italia.

Il progetto monografico racconta l’attitudine politica dell’artista, che interpreterà un Paese dalla forte volontà di riscatto: l’Africa di Toguo è un’Africa che rifiuta la ghettizzazione dei suoi artisti nel mercato dell’arte globale, e che altresì rifiuta di accettare una lettura coloniale della propria terra: “L’Africa non è una discarica!” gridano opere come Dustbin presentata per la prima volta in Italia.

Nell’ambito di un semestre dedicato alla tematica del post coloniale Murate Art District ha prodotto una mostra inedita dal titolo Il viaggio immaginario di Barthélémy Toguo a cura di Janine Gaelle Dieudji e Justin Randolph Thompson, realizzata in collaborazione con Black History Month Florence e Institut Francais Italia.

Il progetto monografico racconta l’attitudine politica dell’artista, che interpreterà un Paese dalla forte volontà di riscatto: l’Africa di Toguo è un’Africa che rifiuta la ghettizzazione dei suoi artisti nel mercato dell’arte globale, e che altresì rifiuta di accettare una lettura coloniale della propria terra: “L’Africa non è una discarica!” gridano opere come Dustbin presentata per la prima volta in Italia.

Il viaggio immaginario

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Il viaggio immaginario, Barthélémy Toguo

Il viaggio immaginario

di Barthélémy Toguo a cura di Janine Gaelle Dieudji e Justin Randolph Thompson, realizzata in collaborazione con Black History Month Florence e Institut Francais Italia

Il viaggio immaginario

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Il viaggio immaginario, Barthélémy Toguo

Justin Randolph Thompson | BHMF 2018

Artista e Direttore Black History Month Florence | Residenza d'artista e Mostra 2018

Justin Randolph Thompson
Artista e Direttore Black History Month Florence | Residenza d'artista e Mostra 2018

Justin Randolph Thompson | BHMF 2018

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Il viaggio immaginario, Barthélémy Toguo

RIVA Project 2017

Promoted by the MUS.E Association under the artistic direction of Valentina Gensini

In 2017, RIVA launched a series of site-specific installations, workshops, exhibitions, and encounters that enjoyed the active participation of performers, visual artists, photographers, and sound artists invited to spend a period of residency in Tuscany with the goal of elaborating on new projects around the theme of the river. For the first time, the RIVA Project did not only touch on Florence but was extended to three other Tuscan towns crossed by the Arno: Pontassieve, Pelago, and Montelupo Fiorentino. Beginning with a reflection on the environmental and cultural heritage represented by the river and its bonds with the community and the territory, the artists involved in the Project (Davide Virdis, Katrinem, Adrian Paci, Radio Papesse, Studio ++) worked in these three towns collaborating with the local Councils and the communities to give rise to new artistic projects. The project that RIVA 2017 focused on was a performance along the river, followed by an exhibit of Adrian Paci hel

In 2017, RIVA launched a series of site-specific installations, workshops, exhibitions, and encounters that enjoyed the active participation of performers, visual artists, photographers, and sound artists invited to spend a period of residency in Tuscany with the goal of elaborating on new projects around the theme of the river. For the first time, the RIVA Project did not only touch on Florence but was extended to three other Tuscan towns crossed by the Arno: Pontassieve, Pelago, and Montelupo Fiorentino. Beginning with a reflection on the environmental and cultural heritage represented by the river and its bonds with the community and the territory, the artists involved in the Project (Davide Virdis, Katrinem, Adrian Paci, Radio Papesse, Studio ++) worked in these three towns collaborating with the local Councils and the communities to give rise to new artistic projects. The project that RIVA 2017 focused on was a performance along the river, followed by an exhibit of Adrian Paci held in Florence and Pelago with the contribution of Museo Novecento and MAD Murate Art District, which displayed works by Adrian Paci associated with the theme of water as a metaphor of flow, movement, and migration. Berlin artist Katrinem was hosted in Montelupo Fiorentino for her residency under the curatorship of Tempo Reale, during which she performed and recorded her personal crossing of and ‘listening’ to the soundscape.

RIVA Project 2017

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Progetto RIVA 2017

Path of awareness

Progetto RIVA

Da oltre 15 anni Katrinem, sound artist di origini tedesche, studia l’interazione tra lo spazio
urbano, il suono e l’azione del camminare. Dal 10 al 12 novembre 2017 Tempo Reale ha proposto in collaborazione con MAD Murate Art District “Path of awareness”, un workshop tenuto dall’artista e indirizzato a sound artist che ha posto l’attenzione sul tratto del fiume Arno che attraversa Montelupo Fiorentino. L’esperienza consisteva in un percorso di consapevolezza (path of awareness) che esplorasse l’esperienza di camminare in uno spazio aperto prestando particolare attenzione all’interazione tra l’elemento sonoro e le architetture circostanti: una passeggiata sonora che genera consapevolezza
sull’integrazione tra fiume e ambiente. Katrinem ha realizzato insieme ai partecipanti
una mappa sonora sul Web che riproponeva il percorso attraverso le note, le registrazioni
e le foto scattate nella prima fase di studio.

Path of awareness

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KATRINEM_ SchuhzuGehört_Path of awareness / Arno

OPEN MAD

Florence Guitar Festival

Mia Fuller

THE GREAT VORTEX EXODUS | AI DREAMS IN THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH

Festival della Transizione Ecologica 2024

Exhibitions

Progetto RIVA

Sinestesie

Progetto RIVA

Sinestesie

Sentiero del Teatro accanto alla Follia

Giuliano Scabia and Franco Basaglia

Sentiero del Teatro accanto alla Follia

Giuliano Scabia and Franco Basaglia

Welcome to Barerarerungar

Welcome to Barerarerungar

Maree Clarke

Welcome to Barerarerungar

Maree Clarke

Welcome to Barerarerungar

LA GRANDE OCCASIONE

LA GRANDE OCCASIONE

Stephan Zimmerli. Studiolo dell’esilio

Stephan Zimmerli. Studiolo dell’esilio

Repose and Resist

15th february – 30th march 2024

Repose and Resist

15th february – 30th march 2024

Agorà

SADI

Agorà

SADI

Presentazione "Drawing everyday. Diario visivo di Stefano Chiassai"

Presentazione "Drawing everyday. Diario visivo di Stefano Chiassai"

Libertà Clandestine

Libertà Clandestine

Drawing Everyday

Drawing Everyday

Nel Segno della Libertà.

Nel Segno della Libertà.

Trying to Grow Wings

Trying to Grow Wings

Le simmetrie dei desideri | Interviste

Le simmetrie dei desideri | Interviste

Le simmetrie dei desideri | Video

Le simmetrie dei desideri | Video

Le simmetrie dei desideri

Le simmetrie dei desideri

FUGA

FUGA

Trying to Grow Wings

Trying to Grow Wings

Trying to Grow Wings

Trying to Grow Wings

Black Archive Alliance IV | by Jessica Sartiani

Black Archive Alliance IV | by Jessica Sartiani

come sa di sale lo pane altrui | Nidhal Chamekh

come sa di sale lo pane altrui | Nidhal Chamekh

Hazel | Kevin Jerome Everson

Hazel | Kevin Jerome Everson

FUGA

FUGA

De-clouding

De-clouding

Marrakech - In times of stillness

Marrakech - In times of stillness

Rivers

Rivers

Il teatro di ricerca al Rondò di Bacco 1975-1978

Il teatro di ricerca al Rondò di Bacco 1975-1978

Marrakech - In times of stillness

Marrakech - In times of stillness

Tabit Rida

If the wind blows in Florence...?

If the wind blows in Florence...?

If the wind blows in Florence...?

If the wind blows in Florence...?

If the wind blows in Florence...?

If the wind blows in Florence...?

Mishima Code Gallery