Amnistia.
Italian coloniality among cinema, criticism and contemporary art

11.7 - 11.8.2018
Sala Napoleonica, Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan

AMNISTIA. Italian Coloniality between Cinema, Criticism and Contemporary Art focuses on Italian colonial history in Africa, which saw the Kingdom of Italy, the Fascist regime and finally the Republic control through occupations, protectorates and trusteeships the territories of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya and Somalia between 1882 and 1960.

In the exhibition, the term amnesty-the extinction of crime and punishment by the state - becomes a metaphor for the suspension of judgment exercised by Italian society toward this episode of its past. Post-war Italy has lacked a solid collective debate on the legacy of fascism and colonialism and consequently an approach to confrontation with the heirs of the colonized peoples. The exhibition presents the research of Italian and international artists, artists and flmmakers who, since the 2000s, have dealt with coloniality, that is, the persistence of traces of colonialism in contemporary society, culture and politics.
The cinema, the monument and the archive emerge as the main objects and subjects of reflection in the works by Sammy Baloji, Rossella Biscotti, Leone Contini, Valerio Ciriaci, Alessandra Ferrini, Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani, Luca Guadagnino, Bekele Mekonnen and Cesare Pietroiusti, made from 2003 to the present, and in some cases conceived for the occasion. Cinematic language is expressed in the form of flm-documentary and video installation, as well as being analyzed in relation to its own propagandistic role during the fascist regime; the monument, the object of contestation in the present, remains at the center of the discourse on historical memory and the changing symbolic meaning it takes on over time; the archive, linked to private collections-sometimes connected to the artists' family history-or to ethnographic museum collections, proves to be an effective device for reflecting on the methodology of approaching historical facts and on the relations between past and present.
AMNISTIA aims to open a space for dialogue to a plurality of perspectives, highlighting the persistence of ideologies, relations of domination, racial narratives, and mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion related to colonialism. Through contemporary visual cultures, the exhibition thus highlights the need to address them.

Artists: Sammy Baloji, Rossella Biscotti,Valerio Ciriaci, Leone Contini, Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani, Luca Guadagnino, Bekele Mekonnen, Cesare Pietroiusti.
Public programm: Fred Kuwornu, Valerio Ciriaci, Alan Maglio & Medhin Paolos, Liliana Ellena, Gaia Giuliani, Gianmarco Mancosu, Angelica Pesarini.

Curators: Matteo Binci, Miriam Canzi, Mariavittoria Casali, Alessandra Fredianelli, Federica Girelli, Gloria Nossa, Noemi Stucchi, Sara Tortolato, Massimo Vaschetto, Claudia Volonterio, Guglielmo Zalukar, Milena Zanetti.
Scientific and artistic direction: Barbara Casavecchia, Lucrezia Cippitelli, Simone Frangi.