13.04.2023 \\ 28.06.2023
Traversing Quicksand is a program of workshops and conversations derived from the exhibition dedicated to Jimmie Durham, “And now, so far into the future That no one will recognize Any of my jokes,” – hosted at Fondazione Morra Greco until the 31st of July 2023 – to reflect on some pressing issues in the field of art and culture: the interaction between cultural institutions and communities, ties with the territory, decolonization, and ecology.
The program, organized and promoted by Fondazione Morra Greco, is part of the project “Azioni culturali della Fondazione Donnaregina Sezione Progetto XXI” (“Cultural Actions of the Donnaregina Foundation Section Project XXI”) and includes a series of appointments to be held between April and July 2023 in the rooms of the Palazzo Caracciolo Avellino in Naples, offering a dialogue between experts in the museum sector, artists, curators, educators, scholars and a non-sectorial audience.
Opening the series of events is the workshop “Not a completed project. Un-learning exercises” curated by anthropologist Giulia Grechi, a project inspired by the research of artist Jimmie Durham, followed by other in-person and online events, in lecture form and in workshop mode, all free of charge and by reservation.
Programme
13th april 2023 // Not a completed project. Un-learning exercises – part I
Curated by Giulia Grechi, professor of Cultural Anthropology and Anthropology of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples
Fondazione Morra Greco | H 4:30 pm
“When an artist’s work impresses and captivates us, what do we do with his words? or his images and practices? where do we put them? do they find a place in our lives? does an artist’s work necessarily end up in a museum room, or what? perhaps, as Jimmie Durham suggests, it is not a completed project…”
29th april 2023 // Vorrei boschi fiorestain my casa
Curated by Valentina Pagliarani
Fondazione Morra Greco | WORKSHOP H 10:30 am | TALK H 12:00 pm
VORREI BOSCHI FIORESTA IN MY CASA is a workshop composed of a succession of small games, rituals and playful drifts that explore the relationship that each corporeality establishes with its own wild being, through the suggestions traced by Jimmie Durham’s words and objects.
4th may 2023 // Not a completed project. Un-learning exercises – part II
Curated by Giulia Grechi, professor of Cultural Anthropology and Anthropology of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples
Fondazione Morra Greco | H 4:30 pm
“When an artist’s work impresses and captivates us, what do we do with his words? or his images and practices? where do we put them? do they find a place in our lives? does an artist’s work necessarily end up in a museum room, or what? perhaps, as Jimmie Durham suggests, it is not a completed project…”
22nd may 2023 // The Museum, the Neighbourhood, and the Housing Crisis
WEBINAR H 1:00 pm
Conversation with Anna Chiara Cimoli (Università degli studi di Bergamo/MUBIG) & Ana Kutleša and Dunja Kučinac (BLOK – Local base for culture refreshment – Trešnjevka Neighbourhood Museum)
Today, the participatory agenda has become one of the museum’s key strategies, but to what extent?
Within EDI Global Forum this webinar will open a critical reflection on the relationship museums have with their neighbourhoods.
This session will focus on how museums should be more proactive in engaging with their communities and addressing social issues, in particular with the current housing crisis.
15th june 2023 // Jimmie Durham: tornare indietro per scomporre gli archivi e ricollegarsi nell’altrove
Talk with Gennaro Ascione, Iain Chambers and Celeste Ianniciello
Fondazione Morra Greco | H 5:30 pm
The conversation aims to explore the question of identity and the concept of the authentic from the works of Jimmie Durham. Drawing from some of the works and artifacts on display at Fondazione Morra Greco, then to the artist’s poetic and nonfiction production, Gennaro Ascione, Iain Chambers and Celeste Ianniciello will mobilize questions around the concept of identity by bringing into the conversation their own research from the fields of post- and decolonial studies, visual studies and anthropology.
22nd june 2023 // KILL THE MUSEUM! Traumi coloniali e immaginazioni
Talk curated by Giulia Grechi, professor of Cultural Anthropology and Anthropology of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples
Fondazione Morra Greco | H 5:00 – 6:00 pm
Institutions are not immune to colonial history; on the contrary, they are actively a part of it: in particular, the museum – a historical institution of European origin born in the midst of the colonial era to fill the imaginations of nascent nations – must continually come to terms with colonial trauma and its ghosts.
The museum constructs its object through the far from innocent act of showing: a process based on the we-other opposition that structures all of our modernity. What have we inherited, of all this? Is it possible to imagine a decolonial museum? What to do with colonial heritages, in their complexity?
Alpha Konarè in 1992, as president of Mali and of ICOM – International Council of Museums, when asked “how to heal the colonial wound?” answered, “Kill the museum!”
Should we really kill the museum?
28.06.23 // Shape the future of museums. Will they be for everyone?
WEBINAR H 4:00 pm
Conversation with Anne Taylor Brittingham, Deputy Director for Education and Responsive Learning Spaces at The Phillips Collection and Maria Chiara Ciaccheri, museologist.
As part of EDI Global Forum, the webinar will reflect on the connection between cultural heritage and civil rights and how contemporary museums are positioned.
The webinar will be in English. Participation is free of charge and by reservation.