You can now book your ticket for the Symposium on Death at Sea: Migration and Art sponsored by the University of Westminster, and part of the exhibition Sink Without Trace.
Looking forward to seeing you there.
Showing posts with label Aesthetics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aesthetics. Show all posts
Thursday, May 2, 2019
Symposium on Death at Sea: Migration and Art
You can now book your ticket for the Symposium on Death at Sea: Migration and Art sponsored by the University of Westminster, and part of the exhibition Sink Without Trace.
Looking forward to seeing you there.
Book Launch_Reframing Migration 13 June 2019 P21 Gallery London
Dear all,
You can now register to attend the book launch of my book.
Looking forward to seeing you there.
The launch is part of the exhibition, Sink Without Trace: An Exhibition on Migrant Death at Sea
Federica
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Sink Without Trace_Exhibition on Migrant Death at Sea
Dear all,
I can finally share with you the information about the exhibition I am co-curating on the topical issue of migrant death at sea.
You can find all information about our exhibition here.
We are also working on a series of related events. Information will be included in the website. So stay tuned and plan your visit to London.
I can finally share with you the information about the exhibition I am co-curating on the topical issue of migrant death at sea.
You can find all information about our exhibition here.
We are also working on a series of related events. Information will be included in the website. So stay tuned and plan your visit to London.
My book is out_Reframing Migration: Lampedusa, Border Spectacle and Aesthetics of Subversion
Dear all,
I am delighted to announce the publication of my book, Reframing Migration: Lampedusa, Border Spectacle and Aesthetics of Subversion. The book launch will be in June. Check this space.
You can find more information here.
I am delighted to announce the publication of my book, Reframing Migration: Lampedusa, Border Spectacle and Aesthetics of Subversion. The book launch will be in June. Check this space.
You can find more information here.
Monday, February 5, 2018
Reframe Migration: From the Border Spectacle to the Aesthetics of Subversion_King's College 5 Feb 2018
Dear all,
I am giving a talk tonight at King's College on my research. All details in the picture attached. Hope to see you there.
I am giving a talk tonight at King's College on my research. All details in the picture attached. Hope to see you there.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Lampedusa: Debating representation of migration in an age of 'crisis' (2 March, 6:30pm.)
Dear all,
it's my pleasure to announce an upcoming event at the University of Westminster, where I will present on my research together with artists Maya Ramsey, Lucy Wood and Côme Ledésert.
Don't miss it! The event is free but registration is required.
Richard Mosse, Incoming (Barbican Art Gallery 15 February-23 April 2017)
Richard Mosse, Incoming
15 February 2017 - 23 April 2017Curve Gallery
Barbican Art Gallery has invited conceptual documentary photographer and Deutsche Börse Photography Prize winner Richard Mosse to create an immersive multi-channel video installation in the Curve. In collaboration with composer Ben Frost and cinematographer Trevor Tweeten, Mosse has been working with an advanced new thermographic weapons and border imaging technology that can see beyond 30km, registering a heat signature of relative temperature difference. Classed as part of advanced weapons systems under International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Mosse has been using this export controlled camera against its intended purpose, to create an artwork about the refugee crisis unfolding in the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Libya, in Syria, the Sahara, the Persian Gulf, and other locations.
Mosse is renowned for work that challenges documentary photography. In his recent work The Enclave (2013) – a six-channel installation commissioned by the Irish Pavilion for the 2013 Venice Biennale – Mosse employed a now discontinued 16mm colour infrared film called Kodak Aerochrome that transformed the green landscape of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo into vivid hues of pink to create a surreal dreamscape. Questioning the ways in which war photography is constructed, Mosse’s representation of the ongoing armed conflict in eastern Congo advocates a new way of looking.
Born in Ireland in 1980, Richard Mosse lives and works in New York and Ireland.
Mosse is renowned for work that challenges documentary photography. In his recent work The Enclave (2013) – a six-channel installation commissioned by the Irish Pavilion for the 2013 Venice Biennale – Mosse employed a now discontinued 16mm colour infrared film called Kodak Aerochrome that transformed the green landscape of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo into vivid hues of pink to create a surreal dreamscape. Questioning the ways in which war photography is constructed, Mosse’s representation of the ongoing armed conflict in eastern Congo advocates a new way of looking.
Born in Ireland in 1980, Richard Mosse lives and works in New York and Ireland.
Please note, the exhibition will close at 6pm (last entry 5.30pm) on 16 February.
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Special Issue on Lampedusa and Cultural Expressions
Dera all,
I am so glad to share with you the news that my Special Issue on Lampedusa and Cultural expressions (Lampedusa: Cultural and artistic spaces for migrant voices) is now out. The issue is published in the journal Crossings: Journal of Migration and Cultures. Below you can read my Editorial:
Editorial
I am so glad to share with you the news that my Special Issue on Lampedusa and Cultural expressions (Lampedusa: Cultural and artistic spaces for migrant voices) is now out. The issue is published in the journal Crossings: Journal of Migration and Cultures. Below you can read my Editorial:
Editorial
Federica Mazzara
Lampedusa is nowadays internationally known for being the first landing shore for thousands of migrants1 who are forced to cross irregularly the Sicilian Channel from Africa in overcrowded dinghies, putting their lives at risk in order to reach Europe, after escaping areas of poverty and conflict. However, Lampedusa is also the destination of international tourism, which seeks out the island especially for its pristine seabed and beautiful beaches. In trying to negotiate this double identity of, on the one hand, the point of arrival and location of a reception centre for desperate migrants and, on the other, the destination of tourists in search of leisure, Lampedusa is a site of tension that has also produced critical spaces of cultural expressions that this Special Issue analyses. The articles presented here share the view that within the so-called ‘migrant crisis’ of at least the past two decades, Lampedusa has been used as a stage of spectacle (De Genova 2005; Cuttitta 2014), where migrants are only allowed to appear in their desolation and misery, with no possibility to subjectify the experience of migrating itself which could allow them to recover their dignity and voices within a predominantly hostile Europe, which often rejects them and the reasons for their passage.
Lampedusa is nowadays internationally known for being the first landing shore for thousands of migrants1 who are forced to cross irregularly the Sicilian Channel from Africa in overcrowded dinghies, putting their lives at risk in order to reach Europe, after escaping areas of poverty and conflict. However, Lampedusa is also the destination of international tourism, which seeks out the island especially for its pristine seabed and beautiful beaches. In trying to negotiate this double identity of, on the one hand, the point of arrival and location of a reception centre for desperate migrants and, on the other, the destination of tourists in search of leisure, Lampedusa is a site of tension that has also produced critical spaces of cultural expressions that this Special Issue analyses. The articles presented here share the view that within the so-called ‘migrant crisis’ of at least the past two decades, Lampedusa has been used as a stage of spectacle (De Genova 2005; Cuttitta 2014), where migrants are only allowed to appear in their desolation and misery, with no possibility to subjectify the experience of migrating itself which could allow them to recover their dignity and voices within a predominantly hostile Europe, which often rejects them and the reasons for their passage.
In line with another recent special issue published in the journal Italian
Studies, edited by Luciano Baracco and entirely dedicated to Lampedusa
(Baracco 2015), this issue recognizes that the question of migration around the
Mediterranean island needs an approach that takes into account the diverse
and contradictory narratives revolving around the arrival of ‘wasted lives’
(Bauman 2004) in a peripheral borderland, yet at the centre of an ‘emergency’
that is rarely challenged.
The idea for this special issue came from a Symposium I organized at UCL in October 2014 called Lampedusa: Migratory Space, Memory and Aesthetics. On that occasion, I invited Alessandro Triulzi (president of the Archivio Memorie Migranti [Archive of Migrant Memories], based in Rome), Ilaria Vecchi (film-maker and member of the Lampedusa-based collective Askavusa) and Valentina Zagaria (anthropologist and theatre director, author of Miraculi, a play about Lampedusa based on collective ethnographic research on the island) to talk about their personal experi- ences dealing with migration in the context of Lampedusa through a less common approach that would include cultural and artistic practices. The symposium generated a further discussion2 on the topic of aesthetics of migration that I link to the work of scholars such as Mieke Bal, and to her pioneering contributions on the topic of ‘migratory aesthetics’ (Bal 2007; Bal and Hernández-Navarro 2011).
The premise here is that in the context of representation, art and cultural discourses reveal aspects of migration that are invisible to governmental and public discourses. Aesthetic representations are better positioned to allow the protagonists of the Mediterranean passage to acquire a visibility commonly denied in mainstream narratives. As I have stated elsewhere, the aesthetic discourse has the ability ‘to reorganize the realm of the visible, diverting the position and the roles of observers and observees, in order to gain different perspectives’ (Mazzara 2015: 460). In so doing, cultural and artistic practices disrupt the ‘representational system that aims at reducing migrant subjectivities to mere bodies without words and yet threatening in their presence as a mass, a multitude, an haemorrhagic stream of anonymous and unfamiliar others’ (Mazzara 2015: 460).
All the contributions to this issue embrace a view that considers migrants as individuals with autonomy, subjects of power that are able to challenge the biased representation of them as criminals or victims, depend- ing on the framework applied, respectively the securitarian or humanitar- ian one, a representation that even cultural practices endorse at times, as in the case of the very recent and award-winning documentary by Gianfranco Rosi, Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea, 2016)3. Despite all the international praise received, Rosi’s film limits itself to drag the viewer to compassion and pity, through a spectacle of suffering that locates the migrants – and to some extend also the locals – at the usual space of invisibility they commonly inhabit in all mainstream representations, failing to encourage a more sophisticated understanding of the issue of immigration into Lampedusa. Migrants do not take the word in the film, apart from a few minutes when they describe how they are distributed in the boat or when they sing a song expressing their desperation, otherwise they appear in all their misery: crying, dirty, exhausted people freshly rescued by the ‘heroes’ of the Italian Navy, or – even worse – they appear as corpses, while the documentary fails
The idea for this special issue came from a Symposium I organized at UCL in October 2014 called Lampedusa: Migratory Space, Memory and Aesthetics. On that occasion, I invited Alessandro Triulzi (president of the Archivio Memorie Migranti [Archive of Migrant Memories], based in Rome), Ilaria Vecchi (film-maker and member of the Lampedusa-based collective Askavusa) and Valentina Zagaria (anthropologist and theatre director, author of Miraculi, a play about Lampedusa based on collective ethnographic research on the island) to talk about their personal experi- ences dealing with migration in the context of Lampedusa through a less common approach that would include cultural and artistic practices. The symposium generated a further discussion2 on the topic of aesthetics of migration that I link to the work of scholars such as Mieke Bal, and to her pioneering contributions on the topic of ‘migratory aesthetics’ (Bal 2007; Bal and Hernández-Navarro 2011).
The premise here is that in the context of representation, art and cultural discourses reveal aspects of migration that are invisible to governmental and public discourses. Aesthetic representations are better positioned to allow the protagonists of the Mediterranean passage to acquire a visibility commonly denied in mainstream narratives. As I have stated elsewhere, the aesthetic discourse has the ability ‘to reorganize the realm of the visible, diverting the position and the roles of observers and observees, in order to gain different perspectives’ (Mazzara 2015: 460). In so doing, cultural and artistic practices disrupt the ‘representational system that aims at reducing migrant subjectivities to mere bodies without words and yet threatening in their presence as a mass, a multitude, an haemorrhagic stream of anonymous and unfamiliar others’ (Mazzara 2015: 460).
All the contributions to this issue embrace a view that considers migrants as individuals with autonomy, subjects of power that are able to challenge the biased representation of them as criminals or victims, depend- ing on the framework applied, respectively the securitarian or humanitar- ian one, a representation that even cultural practices endorse at times, as in the case of the very recent and award-winning documentary by Gianfranco Rosi, Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea, 2016)3. Despite all the international praise received, Rosi’s film limits itself to drag the viewer to compassion and pity, through a spectacle of suffering that locates the migrants – and to some extend also the locals – at the usual space of invisibility they commonly inhabit in all mainstream representations, failing to encourage a more sophisticated understanding of the issue of immigration into Lampedusa. Migrants do not take the word in the film, apart from a few minutes when they describe how they are distributed in the boat or when they sing a song expressing their desperation, otherwise they appear in all their misery: crying, dirty, exhausted people freshly rescued by the ‘heroes’ of the Italian Navy, or – even worse – they appear as corpses, while the documentary fails
to address the reasons behind their death. As Sandra Ponzanesi has recently
observed regarding Rosi’s documentary:
'The rescue scenes [...] have science-fiction, alienating undertones. The shiny laminate thermal blankets give a group of immigrants a surreal look, especially in contrast to the white overall and masks worn by the rescue team to protect themselves from possible contagion, creating an encounter that cannot possibly be on equal footing. We never hear any of the migrants directly, or their personal story. They offer a face, correct- ing therefore our perception of just numbers, but their subjective posi- tion never comes to the fore'.
(Ponzanesi 2016: 12–13)
Rosi’s documentary does not to take into consideration many crucial aspects of the phenomenon of immigration in Lampedusa, such as the fact that the process of militarization of the island has grown to an unbearable extent, or that inside the island there is a strong resistance to the spectacle of the ‘migrant crisis’, performed by locals and people interested in subverting the mainstream narrative that has afflicted Lampedusa in at least the past two decades. Among these, the local collective called Askavusa (‘the barefoot woman’ in Sicilian dialect) has for years promoted a counter-discourse involv- ing migrants in some of their initiatives and is now mainly interested in resist- ing the process of making the island a stronghold of the European border patrol system which is, paradoxically, in charge of rescuing migrants from the very peril caused by this system. The article by Ilaria Vecchi, in this issue, relates the genesis of the collective and its provocative, and at times problem- atic, initiatives.
The humanitarian and sentimentalist approach of Rosi’s film has not done much for the island of Lampedusa, rather it has contributed to keep- ing concealed the fact that the island is a vibrant place and at the centre of a counter-narrative that does not appear in the mainstream media, which this issue is keen to acknowledge through the contributions of scholars, activists and artists who have spent lots of energy in attempts to reveal the reversed side of the coin. The work done by the Archivio Memorie Migranti (Archive of Migrant Memories), which is at the centre of the articles by Alessandro Triulzi and Giancluca Gatta, is an example of the resistance and encouragement of a migrant struggle promoted by the Archive, by involving migrants in cultural projects of self-narration and representation. The article by Gianluca Gatta, in particular, describes the frustration related to the making of a museum of migration on the island, which had a troubled genesis till the project was finally abandoned.
The issue also addresses the possibility of looking at art as a possible way to subvert the narrative. In particular, Valentina Zagaria describes the various steps that led her and a group of international actors to carry out a fieldwork on the island that would end up in the making of a play called Miraculi (‘miracles’in Sicilian dialect) which engages mostly with the inhabit- ants of Lampedusa and their struggles within the framework of the so-called ‘migrant crisis’.
Maya Ramsey’s article looks at the various art practices that migration into Lampedusa, and in general into Europe, has produced in recent years, raising important issues that address the legitimacy of these forms of representation from the perspective of a practicing artist.
'The rescue scenes [...] have science-fiction, alienating undertones. The shiny laminate thermal blankets give a group of immigrants a surreal look, especially in contrast to the white overall and masks worn by the rescue team to protect themselves from possible contagion, creating an encounter that cannot possibly be on equal footing. We never hear any of the migrants directly, or their personal story. They offer a face, correct- ing therefore our perception of just numbers, but their subjective posi- tion never comes to the fore'.
(Ponzanesi 2016: 12–13)
Rosi’s documentary does not to take into consideration many crucial aspects of the phenomenon of immigration in Lampedusa, such as the fact that the process of militarization of the island has grown to an unbearable extent, or that inside the island there is a strong resistance to the spectacle of the ‘migrant crisis’, performed by locals and people interested in subverting the mainstream narrative that has afflicted Lampedusa in at least the past two decades. Among these, the local collective called Askavusa (‘the barefoot woman’ in Sicilian dialect) has for years promoted a counter-discourse involv- ing migrants in some of their initiatives and is now mainly interested in resist- ing the process of making the island a stronghold of the European border patrol system which is, paradoxically, in charge of rescuing migrants from the very peril caused by this system. The article by Ilaria Vecchi, in this issue, relates the genesis of the collective and its provocative, and at times problem- atic, initiatives.
The humanitarian and sentimentalist approach of Rosi’s film has not done much for the island of Lampedusa, rather it has contributed to keep- ing concealed the fact that the island is a vibrant place and at the centre of a counter-narrative that does not appear in the mainstream media, which this issue is keen to acknowledge through the contributions of scholars, activists and artists who have spent lots of energy in attempts to reveal the reversed side of the coin. The work done by the Archivio Memorie Migranti (Archive of Migrant Memories), which is at the centre of the articles by Alessandro Triulzi and Giancluca Gatta, is an example of the resistance and encouragement of a migrant struggle promoted by the Archive, by involving migrants in cultural projects of self-narration and representation. The article by Gianluca Gatta, in particular, describes the frustration related to the making of a museum of migration on the island, which had a troubled genesis till the project was finally abandoned.
The issue also addresses the possibility of looking at art as a possible way to subvert the narrative. In particular, Valentina Zagaria describes the various steps that led her and a group of international actors to carry out a fieldwork on the island that would end up in the making of a play called Miraculi (‘miracles’in Sicilian dialect) which engages mostly with the inhabit- ants of Lampedusa and their struggles within the framework of the so-called ‘migrant crisis’.
Maya Ramsey’s article looks at the various art practices that migration into Lampedusa, and in general into Europe, has produced in recent years, raising important issues that address the legitimacy of these forms of representation from the perspective of a practicing artist.
My article, which opens the issue, intends to frame its theoretical approach
by also referring to some examples of struggle that have occurred within and
outside the island, where migrants have been the main actors, and have used
their own voices and stories to subvert physical and mental borders.
Finally and most importantly, this issue includes a section called ‘Tales of Journeys’ that collects the words of those who have personally experienced the traumatic passage and are eager to share with us the pain, frustration and fear of those moments that led them to undertake the journey (Zakaria Mohamed Ali), the journey itself (Dagmawi Yimer) and the return to the island of Lampedusa as an individual who wants to pay a visit to the place where he first felt safe (Mahamed Aman).
This section ends with an unpublished short story by the Italian-Ethiopian writer and performer Gabriella Ghermandi, whose art is an expression of the strive to cope with the arduousness of migrating and adapting in a cultural space that does not respect your identity and values.
The section ‘Tales of journeys’ is the signature of this issue that lets the actors of the migratory passage subvert the roles of observer and observed, offering the western gaze a chance to suspend the process of spectaculariza- tion in favour of a subjectification of the experience of migrating, beyond any concept of‘crisis’,‘border patrolling’and‘humanitarian intervention’.
Notes
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank all the contributors to this issue for the passion and commit- ment shown in the making of this collaborative project, in particular Alessandro Triulzi for all his advices and comments at various stages, Valentina Zagaria for her supportive enthusiasm since the very beginning and for a care- ful final reading of the whole issue, Ilaria Vecchi for sharing with me over the past years her experience as an activist in the island of Lampedusa, Gianluca Gatta for his willingness to join the project at a later stage, offering his critical view on a project that deserves lots of attention, and Maya Ramsay for adding her perspective as a practitioner.
I also want to thank the Archivio Memorie Migranti (Archive of Migrant Memories) for giving me the opportunity to include in the issue the voices of those who made the journey towards Lampedusa: Dagmawi Yimer, Mahamed Aman and Zakaria Mohamad Ali, whose travel textual testimonies are a precious document we need to preserve. Thank you Dagmawi, Mohamed and Zakaria!
My special thanks also to Gabriella Ghermandi, a writer I admire for her courage to break the silence over painful and untold memories of a woman in-between cultures, for her willingness to offer one of her unpublished short stories to this issue.
I want to thank the Lampedusa collective Askavusa, a hub of incessant reasoning around immigration and its implications in the island that has informed my research on the aesthetics of subversion in Lampedusa at vari- ous stages.
Finally, it is with immense gratitude that I acknowledge the support of Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture, in particular the team’s supportive enthusiasm and the assistance offered during the making of this Special Issue; my special thanks go to Parvati Nair, Elisa Costa Villaverde and Julie Strudwick.
Finally and most importantly, this issue includes a section called ‘Tales of Journeys’ that collects the words of those who have personally experienced the traumatic passage and are eager to share with us the pain, frustration and fear of those moments that led them to undertake the journey (Zakaria Mohamed Ali), the journey itself (Dagmawi Yimer) and the return to the island of Lampedusa as an individual who wants to pay a visit to the place where he first felt safe (Mahamed Aman).
This section ends with an unpublished short story by the Italian-Ethiopian writer and performer Gabriella Ghermandi, whose art is an expression of the strive to cope with the arduousness of migrating and adapting in a cultural space that does not respect your identity and values.
The section ‘Tales of journeys’ is the signature of this issue that lets the actors of the migratory passage subvert the roles of observer and observed, offering the western gaze a chance to suspend the process of spectaculariza- tion in favour of a subjectification of the experience of migrating, beyond any concept of‘crisis’,‘border patrolling’and‘humanitarian intervention’.
Notes
- In this issue the word migrant is used to indicate a broad group of ‘illegalized travellers’ who want to reach Europe
but do not have the required documents to do so. These include economic migrants, asylum seekers and refugees who escape conflict areas or extreme poverty. - When the idea of a Special Issue was developed, other contributors were included in order to present a more comprehensive and diverse view on the topic.
- The documentary won the 66th Golden Bear at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank all the contributors to this issue for the passion and commit- ment shown in the making of this collaborative project, in particular Alessandro Triulzi for all his advices and comments at various stages, Valentina Zagaria for her supportive enthusiasm since the very beginning and for a care- ful final reading of the whole issue, Ilaria Vecchi for sharing with me over the past years her experience as an activist in the island of Lampedusa, Gianluca Gatta for his willingness to join the project at a later stage, offering his critical view on a project that deserves lots of attention, and Maya Ramsay for adding her perspective as a practitioner.
I also want to thank the Archivio Memorie Migranti (Archive of Migrant Memories) for giving me the opportunity to include in the issue the voices of those who made the journey towards Lampedusa: Dagmawi Yimer, Mahamed Aman and Zakaria Mohamad Ali, whose travel textual testimonies are a precious document we need to preserve. Thank you Dagmawi, Mohamed and Zakaria!
My special thanks also to Gabriella Ghermandi, a writer I admire for her courage to break the silence over painful and untold memories of a woman in-between cultures, for her willingness to offer one of her unpublished short stories to this issue.
I want to thank the Lampedusa collective Askavusa, a hub of incessant reasoning around immigration and its implications in the island that has informed my research on the aesthetics of subversion in Lampedusa at vari- ous stages.
Finally, it is with immense gratitude that I acknowledge the support of Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture, in particular the team’s supportive enthusiasm and the assistance offered during the making of this Special Issue; my special thanks go to Parvati Nair, Elisa Costa Villaverde and Julie Strudwick.
This issue is dedicated to the memory of all those unnamed migrants who
hoped to reach the shores of Lampedusa and are instead resting at the bottom
of the Mediterranean Sea.
REFERENCES
Bal, M. (2007), ‘Lost in space, lost in the library’, in S. Durrant and C. Lord (eds), Essays in Migratory Aesthetics, Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 23–36.
Bal, M. and Hernández-Navarro, M. Á. (2011), Art and Visibility in Migratory Culture Conflict, Resistance and Agency, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
Baracco, L. (2015), ‘Reimagining Europe’s borderlands: The social and cultural impact of undocumented migrants on Lampedusa’, Italian Studies, Special issue, 70:4.
Bauman, Z. (2004), Wasted Lives, Modernity and its Outcasts, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Cuttitta, P. (2014), ‘Borderizing the island setting and narratives of the Lampedusa “border play”‘, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 13:2, pp. 196–219.
Genova, N. De (2005), Working the Boundaries: Race, Space, and ‘Illegality’ in Mexican Chicago, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Mazzara, F. (2015), ‘Spaces of visibility for the migrant of Lampedusa: The counter narrative of the aesthetics discourse’, Italian Studies, 70:4, pp. 449–64.
Ponzanesi, S. (2016), ‘Of shipwrecks and weddings: Borders and mobilities in Europe’, Transnational Cinemas, 7:2, pp. 151–167.
Federica Mazzara has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.
REFERENCES
Bal, M. (2007), ‘Lost in space, lost in the library’, in S. Durrant and C. Lord (eds), Essays in Migratory Aesthetics, Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 23–36.
Bal, M. and Hernández-Navarro, M. Á. (2011), Art and Visibility in Migratory Culture Conflict, Resistance and Agency, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
Baracco, L. (2015), ‘Reimagining Europe’s borderlands: The social and cultural impact of undocumented migrants on Lampedusa’, Italian Studies, Special issue, 70:4.
Bauman, Z. (2004), Wasted Lives, Modernity and its Outcasts, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Cuttitta, P. (2014), ‘Borderizing the island setting and narratives of the Lampedusa “border play”‘, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 13:2, pp. 196–219.
Genova, N. De (2005), Working the Boundaries: Race, Space, and ‘Illegality’ in Mexican Chicago, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Mazzara, F. (2015), ‘Spaces of visibility for the migrant of Lampedusa: The counter narrative of the aesthetics discourse’, Italian Studies, 70:4, pp. 449–64.
Ponzanesi, S. (2016), ‘Of shipwrecks and weddings: Borders and mobilities in Europe’, Transnational Cinemas, 7:2, pp. 151–167.
Federica Mazzara has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.
Monday, November 14, 2016
My interview for the Blog PERFORMNING BORDERS
Hi there,
Just wanted to share with you an interview with me by Alessandra Cianetti (co-director of Something Human) for her amazing Blog, Performing Borders: Conversations on Live Art / Crossing / Europe.
Enjoy it!
Just wanted to share with you an interview with me by Alessandra Cianetti (co-director of Something Human) for her amazing Blog, Performing Borders: Conversations on Live Art / Crossing / Europe.
Enjoy it!
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Dialogues on Migration_17 Nov 2016 4pm. London School of Economics
Presentations:
Tracing the transcultural subjectivity of unaccompanied refugee minors through ethnography, Anna-Kaisa Kuusisto-Arponen, University of Tampere/LSE
Debris: collaborative explorations of abandoned objects from Lampedusa, Karina Horsti, University of Jyväskylä/LSE
Documentary film screening: WRECK (2016, 10 min., Director Jan Ijäs, script: Karina Horsti and Jan Ijäs)
Introduction: Professor Lilie Chouliaraki,
Chair: Anna Roosvall, Associate Professor, Fellow (Stockholm University/LSE)
Discussant: Pierluigi Musaro, Associate Professor, Fellow (University of Bologna/LSE)
17th November 2016, 4pm-6pm
Silverstone Room, Department of Media and Communications
Tower 3, 7th floor
Image: courtesy of Jan Ijäs
ARCHIVE-AS-METHOD SALON-Italian Colonial Heritage UoL 5 Dec
Working with Visual Documents of the Italian Colonial Heritage
Monday 5th of December 2016, 3.30-6.30pm
Presentations, short-film screenings and Q&A with:
Alessandra Ferrini, Gianmarco Mancosu, Martina Melilli and Jacopo Rinaldi
This Salon brings together artists, filmmakers and historians in order to discuss methodological approaches to the exploration and activation of colonial, archival material. Given the recent interest in the Italian colonial past, the salon aims to shed light onto a previously marginalised historical period.
The first part of the salon will introduce to the fascist imperial project and its legacy through Gianmarco Mancosu's research based on the newsreels on the Ethiopian War of 1935-36 and Alessandra Ferrini's essay film and pedagogic project Negotiating Amnesia (2015), which is based on archival photographs and propaganda postcards from the same period. The second part of the salon will kick off with Martina Melilli's presentation of an ongoing body of work stemming from her family's history in the Libyan colony and in Italy, after the expulsion of Italians from Libya in 1970. It will be followed by Jacopo Rinaldi's problematisation of the truthfulness of archival material, through his research in the Pirelli Historic Archive (Milan), and the production of works exploring the rubber industry. To conclude, the four researchers will be in conversation and will open up the debate to the public.
Free, but seats are limited. To book a place, please email us at mnemoscape@gmail.com
University College London, SH243, 2nd floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
***
PROGRAMME
3.30-3.45 Introduction
3.45-4.15 Gianmarco Mancosu
"Deconstructing The Imperial Visual Archive: Production, Reproduction, Resignification Of The Fascist Newsreels On The Ethiopia War." (Includes screening of newsreels)
4.15-4.45 Alessandra Ferrini
"Negotiating Amnesia: Activating Images and Questioning Memories" (Includes screening of excerpts from Negotiating Amnesia, 2015)
4.45-5.00 Break
5.00-5.30 Martina Melilli
"TRIPOLITALIANS: building a personal archive to narrate a shared story." (Includes screening of short films from TRIPOLITALIANS)
5.30-6.00 Jacopo Rinaldi
"Can an Archive Lie?" (Includes screening of A Romance of Rubber, loop, 2015)
6.00-6.30 Q&A and Open Discussion
***
BIOS
Alessandra Ferrini is a London-based artist, researcher and educator, co-founding director of the research platform and online magazine Mnemoscape. Her work is rooted in lens-based media, (post)colonial and memory studies, historiographical and archival practices. She holds an MA in Art ad Visual Culture from the University of Westminster.
Gianmarco Mancosu is PhD Student at the University of Warwick. His research interests are the representations of colonialism in Italy between Fascism and the Republic, and related recollections in contemporary visual products. He is currently working on a monograph about the Istituto Luce’s 'Reparto Foto-Cinematografico Africa Orientale', which he studied in his first doctoral work (Cagliari, 2015).
Martina Melilli is an Italian visual artist and filmmaker. She graduated with a master degree in Visual Arts (IUAV), with a major in Documentary and Experimental Cinema (LUCA School of Arts). Her research deal with the representation of the individual and collective imagery in relation with memory and “belonging”.
Jacopo Rinaldi is an artist and researcher living in Rome. He graduated in Milan with a master’s degree in Visual Art and Curatorial Studies at Naba. His research concerns the relation between memory, oblivion and architecture in the transmission of knowledge.
#MyEscape_Film screening Goethe Institut London 14 Nov 2016
Germany 2016, colour, 90 mins. With English subtitles.
Director: Elke Sasse.
The screening will be followed by a Q & A with der director Elke Sasse
hosted by Marta Welander, Founder, Refugee Rights Data Project (RRDP)
Buy tickets here
Location: Goethe-Institut London
50 Princes Gate
Exhibition Road
London
SW7 2PH
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Papers. Festival of the art, culture and architecture of refugee crisis_ 12 June Barbican Centre, London
This critical celebration will examine the creative and urban culture which has emerged from refugee camps across Europe. It will bring together refugee artists, musicians, poets, chefs and builders with a programme of discussions taking place on multiple stages throughout the day.
DISCUSSIONS STAGE
A mix of short presentation and panel discussion with some of the world's leading thinkers on refugee camps and migration. Panels will examine the built responses which have emerged from camps in Calais, Dunkirk, Lesvos and Pikpa culminating in an open plenary discussion with all participants.
GARDEN ROOM
Music, film and discussion. This stage will incorporate a mix of live and recorded music with short films ma...de about and by those at the epicentre of the crisis.
THE CONSERVATORY
The Barbican's vast glass house will host a wide variety of art pieces and installations. It will become a gallery of the rich mix of strange and powerful art which has come from or been made in response to refugee camps. At the heart will be the Blue House by the artist Alpha - an art school and gallery rescued from the Jungle in Calais and rebuilt for the first time in the UK specially Papers.
THE TERRACE
Hanging above the tropical plants of the jungle-like conservatory is the terrace, a platform which will play host to a mix of built prototype demonstrations, makers and food. The Kent Refugee Action Catering will be running a micro restaurant showing their work with asylum-seeking boys in Folkstone.
Line up to be announced.
Curated by Robert Mull with The Worldwide Tribe, Phineas Harper, Daniela Puga, Grainne Hassett, Jake Raslan, Jayden Ali, Esme Mull and Cindy Palmano.
Papers is part of the London Festival of Architecture 2016
http://
DISCUSSIONS STAGE
A mix of short presentation and panel discussion with some of the world's leading thinkers on refugee camps and migration. Panels will examine the built responses which have emerged from camps in Calais, Dunkirk, Lesvos and Pikpa culminating in an open plenary discussion with all participants.
GARDEN ROOM
Music, film and discussion. This stage will incorporate a mix of live and recorded music with short films ma...de about and by those at the epicentre of the crisis.
THE CONSERVATORY
The Barbican's vast glass house will host a wide variety of art pieces and installations. It will become a gallery of the rich mix of strange and powerful art which has come from or been made in response to refugee camps. At the heart will be the Blue House by the artist Alpha - an art school and gallery rescued from the Jungle in Calais and rebuilt for the first time in the UK specially Papers.
THE TERRACE
Hanging above the tropical plants of the jungle-like conservatory is the terrace, a platform which will play host to a mix of built prototype demonstrations, makers and food. The Kent Refugee Action Catering will be running a micro restaurant showing their work with asylum-seeking boys in Folkstone.
Line up to be announced.
Curated by Robert Mull with The Worldwide Tribe, Phineas Harper, Daniela Puga, Grainne Hassett, Jake Raslan, Jayden Ali, Esme Mull and Cindy Palmano.
Papers is part of the London Festival of Architecture 2016
http://
Facebook page of the event
TICKETS available here
Monday, May 9, 2016
Refugee week 20-26 June in UK
Find all details here.
Don't miss the launch of the RW at Southbank Centre on the 19th of June.
The theme of this year RW is WELCOME.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Performing Borders_Conversation on art | crossings | europe (30 March 2016)
Another exciting event soon happening in London!
Performing borders: Conversation on art | crossings | europe is an open dialogue on how artists, researchers and art organisations can use their practices and projects to respond to and challenge the borders of Europe and their shifting meanings.
Guest speakers include: Lois Keidan (Co-Director of the Live Art Development Agency), Sophie Nield (Senior Lecturer in Drama at the Royal Holloway University of London), Juliet Steyn (Co-editor of ‘Breaching Borders: Art, Migrants and the Metaphor of Waste’), Marilena Zaroulia and Philip Hager (Co-Founders of the Inside/Outside Europe Research Network) will present their own perspectives and engage in a discussion on the role of live and visual art in the flux reality of Europe and its proliferating and increasingly heterogeneous borders.
All those interested in citizenship, crossing borders, and experimental art practices are welcome to bring their own ideas and experiences to the conversation.
All details bout the event here.
The organizer is my freind Alessandra Cianetti, Co-director of Something Human.
Check out her blog as well!
Monday, November 2, 2015
Migrations Europa Exchange - 16-18 February 2016
When dance meets migration!
Migrations Europa Exchange starts soon. Don't miss it, book your tickets!
Migrations Europa Exchange starts soon. Don't miss it, book your tickets!
Platforma festival - De Montford University, Leicester 5-6 November 2015
Friday, September 25, 2015
On the Bride's Side_King's College 15th October 2015
Dear all,
On the Bride Side by Antonio Augugliaro, Khaled Soliman Al Nassiry and Gabriele Del Grande arrives in London. You can find all details on this link. Please note the event is free but you need to reserve a seat.
I will have the pleasure and honour to chair the panel discussion that will follow the screening of the film/documentary.
Join this amazing event!
On the Bride Side by Antonio Augugliaro, Khaled Soliman Al Nassiry and Gabriele Del Grande arrives in London. You can find all details on this link. Please note the event is free but you need to reserve a seat.
I will have the pleasure and honour to chair the panel discussion that will follow the screening of the film/documentary.
Join this amazing event!
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Refugees - Conference UCL 13 March 2015
I have been invited to contribute to this half-day conference organized by the Psychoanalysis Unit at UCL. Come along if you can.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Something Human at THE TERMINAL: London 25-27 October 2013
It's my pleasure to announce another cool London event that will take place at the end of October in 47/49.
It's called 'The Terminal' and it is organized by Something Human, a curator collective. On the 27th I'm going to give a talk within this event on the powerful documentary by Carlo Michele Schirinzi, an Italian film-maker.
Spread the word and come along if you are in London!
It's called 'The Terminal' and it is organized by Something Human, a curator collective. On the 27th I'm going to give a talk within this event on the powerful documentary by Carlo Michele Schirinzi, an Italian film-maker.
Spread the word and come along if you are in London!
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