Alessandra Ferrini. Negotiating Amnesia

The 56° Festival dei Popoli - International Documentary Film Festival – it is proud to present the collateral project Negotiating Amnesia by artist-as-researcher Alessandra Ferrini, open at Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea, from 28 November to 9 December, developed in collaboration with Alinari’s Archive, Association Mus.e and Florence Municipality.
Negotiating Amnesia presents a long-term artistic and historic research project realised in the Alinari’s Archive by the artist Alessandra Ferrini. Through the analysis of images of the Italian occupation of East Africa during the fascist regime and the investigation of the history textbooks used in Italian high-schools from 1946 to today, Negotiating Amnesia explores the legacy of Italian colonialism and its emblematic politics of amnesia.
For her solo exhibition at PAC-Murate Ferrini will present the essay film Negotiating Amnesia and an installation by the title Notes on Historical Amnesia. An example of 'research-as-exhibition', the installation will unveil the research process behind the film, commenting on the role of documents in contemporary artistic production. Conceived as a work-in-progress, it will be activated by workshops for high school students. To guide the teachers and prepare the students, the artist has created a specially designed teachers' pack.
Posing a meditation on a semi-forgotten chapter of twentieth century Italian history, the essay film Negotiating Amnesia will focus on the Ethiopian War of 1935-36. This period is chosen because of its connections with fascism and its imperial project. Through interviews, archival images and the analysis of high-school textbooks, the film shifts through an array of different historical and personal narratives. In so doing it aims at revealing the amnesic politics that accompany this historical period, while exposing public and personal strategies of remembering and forgetting.
The film is divided in small chapters, each serving as a reflection on the role of images, monuments and pedagogical texts in the creation of public memory. The first chapter, Heritage vs Memory presents interviews with two heirs of photographs of the Ethiopian War. By focusing on the different ways in which they have stored and preserved the images, Ferrini investigates the ideological basis of memorial practices. Photography vs Memory, instead, exposes and deconstructs the colonial gaze that denotes the photographs taken during the fascist occupation of East Africa. On the other hand, Monuments vs Memory present three monuments that question the way memorialising practices can, on the contrary, promote forgetfulness. Finally, the last chapter, Education vs Memory, exposes the different narratives that have been promoted around the issue of Italian colonialism, within the Italian education system from 1946 to today. Revealing an absence of criticality within this subject and a detachment from postcolonial debates, the film finally poses the question of how this ingrained drive to forget may, indeed, have colonised contemporary Italian society. 

Alessandra Ferrini is an artist/researcher, co-director of Mnemoscape, an online magazine, curatorial and research platform dedicated to contemporary art practices exploring issues of memory, history and the 'archival impulse'. As artist/educator Ferrini has worked on commissions by Chisenhale Gallery, Tate Britain and The Museum of London. Upcoming exhibitions include: Negotiating Amnesia a solo show at PAC: Le Murate – Progetti d'Arte Contemporanea in collaboration with Fratelli Alinari Archive (Florence) between November and December 2015; and a collaborative project for the Mediterranea17 Biennale at Viafarini (Milan, IT) in October – November 2015. 
Website: www.alessandraferrini.info     

Vai alla guida d'arte di Florence