We are delighted to invite you to Inhabited Dissonance. Bozen-Bolzano 1922-2024, a programme of three public seminars organized by the working group of the interdisciplinary research project “Curating Bozen-Bolzano Fascist Legacy. A sustainable approach to a city’s dissonant heritage” (CuFa). The seminars will be held on 5, 6 and 7 June 2024, from 6:30 pm to 8 pm, on the Bozen-Bolzano campus.
The project
“Curating Bozen-Bolzano Fascist Legacy. A sustainable approach to the dissonant heritage of a city” (CuFa) is an interdisciplinary research project of the Faculty of Design and Arts of the Free University of Bolzano led by prof. Roberto Gigliotti in collaboration with historian prof. Andrea Di Michele (Faculty of Education Sciences) and Dr. Waltraud Kofler Engl, director of the Cultural Heritage and Cultural Production Platform. The project is developed with local arts organizations Lungomare and BAU – Institute for Contemporary Arts and Ecology, and with Prof. Dr. Andres Lepik, director of the Architecture Museum and the Chair of History of Architecture and Curatorial Practices at the Technical University of Munich. The working group includes art historian and project coordinator Dr Elisabetta Rattalino, architecture and landscape historian Dr Gaia Piccarolo, visual designer Dr Gianluca Camillini, and architecture critic Dr Davide Tommaso Ferrando. CuFa investigates display strategies and curatorial methodologies that can critically question the traces of fascist architecture in Bozen-Bolzano’s complex urban history. Inhabited Dissonance. Bozen-Bolzano 1922-2024 is the first public event of the research project, whose results will be presented in an exhibition in the Galleria Civica of Bozen-Bolzano and in selected public spaces of the city in April 2025. The exhibition will be supported by the Municipality of Bozen-Bolzano and the Provincia Autonoma di Bozen-Bolzano.
The Seminar
The seminar Inhabited Dissonance. Bozen-Bolzano 1922-2024 aims at promoting critical approaches to the study and resignification of fascist architectural and environmental traces in Italy, focusing on issues relevant to the city of Bozen-Bolzano. Each meeting will see the participation of a scholar and of an artist, encouraging a dialogue between historical research and artistic methodologies. This interdisciplinary approach fosters exchanges between experts whose studies are concerned with the material and visual traces preserved in archives, museum collections and public spaces, and arts practitioners whose work engages with these very materials and contexts, and it aspires to develop new critical perspectives and interventions aiming at communicating, understanding and re-signifying difficult and controversial monuments and moments in history.
5 June 2024, h 18:30-20, room D1.01: On Fascism, Nature and Soil (English).
This event concerns the ideology of nature, with Dr. Roberta Biasillo (Utrecht University), environmental historian and author of Storia ambientale delle paludi pontine (Viella, 2023), and the artist Ela Spalding. Spalding has developed an artistic methodology (SUELO) around the concept, metaphor and materiality of soil.
6 June 2024, h 18:30-20, room D 1.02. Monuments and public space (Italian and German. Translation into German and Italian available).
This seminar will focus on the relationship between monuments and public space. Starting from the reflections of her latest edited book (A Difficult Heritage. The Afterlives of Fascist-Era Art and Architecture, 2023), the art historian Dr. Belmonte (University of Roma Tre / Bibliotheca Hertziana) will focus on the traces of Italian colonialism and the practices of resignification of this legacy. Viennese artist Eduard Freudmann will discuss his participatory artistic interventions dedicated to controversial monuments.
7 June 2024, h 18:30 - 20, room D1.02. Simulacri antichi e conflitti di memorie: il fascismo e la storia (Italian. Translation into German available).
This session investigates the relationship between historical narrative, political mythology and monuments, through a presentation by historian of fascism Dr. Paola Salvatori (Scuola Normale Superiore), who is the editor of the volume Il fascismo e la storia (Edizioni della Normale, 2022). Dr Salvatori will be in dialogue with artist Stefano Graziani, known for his photographic research at the intersection between architecture and archives.
We are looking forward to seeing you there!
