Diasporic Perspectives. Unlearning Imperial Histories with Libyan and Italian artists.
Diasporic Perspectives is a series of conversations with artists from Italy and Libya and their perspectives on Coloniality, Archive, Heritage and Translation. It is a project by Dr Barbara Spadaro, Lecturer in Italian History and Culture at the University of Liverpool (UK), inspired by Ariella Aisha Azoulay’s book ‘Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism’. Each episode of the podcast is an interview with one artist about the artwork, ideas and questions explored in their practice. Each conversation reveals different perspectives on the past, present, and potential futures of these memories.
Info & contact:
b.spadaro@liverpool.ac.uk (https://liverpool.ac.uk)
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/people/barbara-spadaro (https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/people/barbara-spadaro)
IG: @drbasp
Diasporic perspectives is produced by Botafuego Audio and Dr Barbara Spadaro with a grant of the British Institute of Libyan and Northern African Studies (BILNAS, https://www.bilnas.org/). Sound editing, effects and production by Botafuego Audio and Michael Bayliss. Interviews by Dr Barbara Spadaro.
Malak El Ghuel: Textile Memories, Art Therapy, with Antonella Russo-Ball
Malak El Ghuel is a Libyan designer and trainee counsellor using the Arts therapeutically to create spaces that foster a sense of grounding and connection with heritage. Her workshop at Beit El-Fezzani cafe in London invites participants to experience the beauty of Libyan culture through textiles and engage in meaningful conversations over tea. In this episode, Malak and I converse with Antonella Russo-Ball, an Italian Integrative Arts Child Psychotherapist based in London whose family settled in colonial Libya. Malak and Antonella discuss how textile memories can mend colonial erasure and revitalize art-making as worldmaking.
Malak El Ghuel: @maaalakkk__ @therapy.rugs
Antonella Russo-Ball: [@ziboanto] @artsandtherapysanctuary
Beit ElFezzani Cafe London: @beitelfezzani
Tags: #arttherapy #artworkshop #healing #ancestors #diaspora #worldmaking #textile #art #memory #libya #london #heritage #mending #artmaking
Info&contact:
b.spadaro@liverpool.ac.uk
@drbasp
Diasporic perspectives is a podcast produced by Botafuego Audio and Dr Barbara Spadaro for the British Institute of Libyan and Northern African Studies. Sound editing, effects and production by Botafuego Audio and Michael Bayliss. Interviews by Dr Barbara Spadaro.
21 Jan 2025
Alessandra Cianelli - On the Practice of Wonder and the Need for an Archive
Alessandra Cianelli - On the Practice of Wonder and the Need for an Archive/ Sulla pratica della meraviglia e la necessità di un archivio
Alessandra Cianelli is a researcher, artist, and cultural practitioner based in Naples, trained in Yoga studies in the lineage of Krishnamacharia from South India. Her work explores the intersection of memory and historical narratives through various mediums, including video, audio, texts, installations, performances, and lectures. Cianelli's research engages with biological and biographical archives, examining themes such as coloniality, migration, Southern epistemologies and rural archetypes. Her project "Il paese delle terre d’Oltremare" [The land of the overseas territories] explores through performative interventions the ruins of the fascist empire exhibition (Mostra d’Oltremare) at the outskirts of Naples. Cianelli’s work has been exhibited at the Museo Madre in Naples and internationally. She is the founder of "Dormire", an informal residency project exploring memory through artistic research and production, and a member of the Centro Studi Postcoloniali e di Genere at the University of Naples "L'Orientale".
Website: https://www.alessandracianelli.com (https://www.alessandracianelli.com/)/ (https://www.alessandracianelli.com/)
IG/contacts: dormirefondazione
In this episode we talk about the practice of wonder/wander and the colonial archive, an expedition into the ruins of a fantaesotic complex in Naples, South-South migration and colonialism, Francesco Rosi’s film Cristo si è fermato ad Eboli (1979), seas of wheat and seas of sand (from Irpinia to Libya), a journey on the footsteps of the ancestors, selfpositioning and the roots of the colonial self.
21 Jan 2025
Alessandra Ferrini on Coloniality and Holding Oneself Accountable
Alessandra Ferrini: expanding the archive of coloniality and making oneself accountable
Alessandra Ferrini is a visual artist, researcher, and educator working between the UK and Italy. Her research is concerned with Italian colonial and Fascist history, memory, and heritage. Her work is rooted in lens-based media, postcolonial and critical whiteness studies, and historiographical and archival practices. Ferrini investigates the Italian archive of coloniality and its racial politics, through expanded documentary filmmaking, writing and education projects. She holds a PhD from the University of the Arts London and the outputs of this research - ‘Gaddafi in Rome: Dissecting a Neocolonial Spectacle’ - have been awarded the most prestigious contemporary art prize in Italy, the Maxxi Bvlgari Prize 2022, and have been exhibited at the 60th Venice Biennale curated by Adriano Pedrosa. In this episode we talk about engaging with the Italian history of colonial genocides from the UK; public heritage, fascist legacies and education; thinking about artistic practice through theoretical research; the archive of coloniality and other archives; how to make oneself accountable; and translation as an anticolonial practice.
Website: https://www.alessandraferrini.info/ (https://www.alessandraferrini.info/)
Academia:https://arts-london.academia.edu/AlessandraFerrini (https://arts-london.academia.edu/AlessandraFerrini)
IG: @alessandra.ferrini
21 Jan 2025
Tewa Barnosa: Unlearning Languages and (Virtual) Realities
Tewa Barnosa is a trans-disciplinary artist and independent curator from Tripoli, now based in Amsterdam. Her work explores socio-ecological turbulences, religious rituals, political mythologies and the future of Amazigh languages and scripts. Her practice spans visual arts and curatorial collaborations, including audio-visual installations, text, performance, and expanded paintings. Barnosa is the founder of WaraQ art space (https://www.facebook.com/waraqly/), a non-profit organization that aims to revive the Libyan art scene locally and internationally. Currently post-grad Sonology student at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, and Alumnus of the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten 2021-2023, Barnosa is an award-winning artist whose work has been exhibited at several institutions internationally.
In this episode, we talk about languages and memory, poetry and knowledge production, political mythologies and concepts of ‘Truth’, nomadic archives and oral histories, archiving graffiti and Tewa’s VR performance at the exhibition Totalitarian Props (https://www.africacentre.org.uk/event/exhibition-totalitarian-props), curated with Najlaa El-Ageli at the Africa Centre in London.
Artist website: https://tewabarnosa.com/ (https://tewabarnosa.com/)
IG: tewa_barnosa
For info, questions and comments on the podcast series: @drbasp
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