VILLA ROMANA - HOME
VILLA ROMANA - HOME

Exhibitions

08 Nov                     13 Dec 2019

SEEDS FOR FUTURE MEMORIES
Part 4 /an extract

Johanna Bramble, Fabrice Monteiro, Leone Contini, Juan Pablo Macias, Aliou (Badou) Diack, Justin Randolph Thompson

We warmly invite you and your friends to the opening of the exhibition
on Friday, 08 November, at 8 pm.

Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 2 - 6 pm and by appointment


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Installation view

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Leone Contini, The white-man-tomato and other tales, 2018 (detail)

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Fabrice Monteiro, Enlightenment (Migrant Type French), 2018, Colonial Empire (Migrant Type British), 2018, backlit prints

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Juan Pablo Macias, Somba and Brother Greetings, 2018, 4’6’’, Brother Babacar and Brother Maíz Greetings, 2018, 18’33’’

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Johanna Bramble, FILS A FILS, 2019, fabric, thread, rubber gloves, sand

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Justin Randolph Thompson, 99 Legged Centipede, 2019, clock card machine, paper, watercolour, Juan Pablo Macias, Tiempo Muerto #6, 2019


In 2018, thirteen European and African artists travelled to Sinthian, Senegal and Florence, Italy to confront the contemporary realities of colonialism, and to jointly develop an aesthetic and political dialogue. Hosts and partners were Villa Romana in Florence and Thread Residency in Sinthian.

This summer, artistic works resulting from these researches were presented in three parallel exhibitions in Berlin. Part of this presentation will now be on display at Villa Romana, before the provisional conclusion of the SEEDS cooperative project in February 2020, during the Festival de l'Union in Tambacounda, Senegal.

The exhibition opens with the symposium TRANSVERSE TRAJECTORIES. Speculative routes out of ruinous landscapes (08 -10 Nov 2019). Exhibition and symposium are funded within the framework of Cantiere Toscana by the Regione Toscana.


Johanna Bramble (born 1976 in Paris) is a designer and textile artist living in Dakar. She founded a workshop there and the label Johanna Bramble Créations, specializing in interior design and accesso-ries. Her commercial textile designs are crafted using traditional Senegalese weaving techniques and her artistic work expands the boundaries of this heritage by incorporating modern materials and tech-niques from other cultures.

Leone Contini (born 1976 in Florence) studied philosophy and cultural anthropology at the Università degli Studi di Siena. His research focuses on intercultural friction, conflict and power relations, expulsion, migration and diaspora and uses the tools of anthropology to short-circuit the spheres of commonness through lecture performances, collective interventions in public space, textual and visual narratives, blogs or self-publishing. Exhibitions and interventions took place in SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (2019), ACUD, Berlin,(2019), Manifesta 12, Palermo, IT (2018), Museo delle Civiltà, Rome (2017), Mudec, Milan (2017), Quadriennale, Rome, (2016), Delfina Foundation, London (2017, 2015 and 2014), Khoj, New Delhi (2014), Kunstraum, Munich, D (2014), Kunstverein, Amsterdam (2013) and others.

Aliou 'Badou' Diack (born 1987 in Sidi Bougou, Mbour, Senegal) studied at the Ecole Nationale des Arts (ENA) in Dakar. His visual universe is inhabited by hybrid beings in a process of constant metamorphosis.Drawing from a pool of local oral narrative traditions, the drawings negotiate the role of man, animal and nature in the age of the anthropocene. Works by Aliou 'Badou' Diack have been exhibited at Le Manège de l'Institut Francais Gallery, Dakar (2019), Donwahi Foundation, Abidjan (2019), Dak'Art OFF, Dakar (2018), Art X Lagos, Lagos (2017), National Art Gallery, Dakar (2017), Hotel de la Mairie, Goree, SN (2017), Regards sur cours, Saint Louis, SN (2017).

Juan Pablo Macias (born 1974 in Mexico) studied Fine Arts at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and at the Universidad de las Americas in Mexico. In his works he explores the relationship between power and revolt. His actions, interventions, archiving and publishing projects create tensions between institutions, art and the social environment and developed concepts that directly affect bio-logical, social and economic bodies. His works have been shown at the 2nd Yinchuan Biennale, Yinchuan, CN (2018), Museo Internacional del Barroco, Puebla, MX (2018), Center of Contemporary Art, Plovdiv, BG (2018),  Italian Embassy, Berlin (2015), Goethe Institut, Sao Paolo (2015), 15th Jakarta Biennale, Jakarta (2013), Kunstraum München, Munich, D (2013), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2012).

Fabrice Monteiro has family roots in Belgium and Benin and lives and works in Dakar. After training as an industrial engineer and working as a model, he has worked as a photographer since 2007. His portfolio ranges from photojournalism and fashion photography to portraits. Africa with its culture, society and religion is the main inspiration for its work. His hybrid heritage allows him to avoid exotic stereotypes and instead open up third perspectives. Monteiro's works have been featured in many international exhibitions, including Smithsonian Museum of African Art, Washington, US (2018), University of Michigan Musuem of Art, Michigan, US (2018), Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, US (2018), Dak'Art Biennale, St. Louis (2018), Manifesta 12, Palermo, IT (2018),  Musee de l'Homme, Paris (2017), Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, D (2017).

Justin Randolph Thompson is a new media artist and educator born in Peekskill, NY, in 1979. Thompson is a co-founder of Black History Month Florence. His work questions the implications of cultural relics and the mutability of their veneration within the context of displacement. Broadly collaborative and inherently interdisciplinary, his work relies upon the collective power of creative dialogue. His site-specific works invites contributors from all disciplines who are interested in the dynamics of communities to partake in the creation of installations and sound-based performances by using gestures of labour as rhythmic structures. Thompson has exhibited internationally and has been artist in residence at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Reina Sofia, Sofia and the American Academy in Rome.


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