Black Archive Alliance
Villa Romana in the context of Cantiere Toscana, in collaboration with BHMF

Objectives
Present archival materials in sites throughout the city broadening the access to the findings Highlight histories that have frequently been omitted from local memory Provide the foundational spark for future research in this field Remedy the state of amnesia that isolates African and African Diasporic presence in the city and country as an exclusively contemporary phenomenon Highlight the research and researchers who have already been doing this work Produce texts and photographic exhibition materials that can later be re-installed as educational resources.

Colonial Postcards and Landscape architecture
MAD Murate Art District (Emeroteca) 5:30 pm Presentation of the project dedicated to Colonial Postcards from Italian editors and Stamps from the Poste Italiane with the research of the Students of Angelica Pesarini’s Black Italia class at New York University Florence together with the presentation of an artistic project dedicated to Colonial Botanical Gardens by Michele Dantini.

Landscape architecture. African city parks and botanical gardens by Michele Dantini
For Black Archive Alliance Michele Dantini presents a research rooted in various international archives that investigates African botanical gardens, their colonial conception and their meaning today. The history of African city parks and botanical gardens is interwoven with State political or social vicissitudes, colonization and de-colonization processes, the establishment of new nations, and, in varying ways, with the history of agriculture and the forest. Above all, it is interwoven with a fantasy that is deeply inscribed in the European colonial imagination, that of an African Eden designed for hunting and timeless emotions, and – with the norms, demarcations and prohibitions that led to the creation of natural parks and protected areas – made inaccessible to local populations.

Preparing a Recovery Plan
MAD Murate Art District6 pm
Preparing a Recovery Plan_Artist Screening of artists working with the archive as form and context with videos by: Lerato Shadi, Kevin Jerome Everson e Alessandra Ferrini (with presence of artists)

Sites/Sources/Projects

Biblioteca Marucelliana, Via Camillo Cavour, 43, 50129 Florence;  8.30 am – 6.30 pm
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Piazza San Lorenzo 9, 50123 Florence; 9.30 am -1.30 pm
British Institute of Florence/ Harold Acton Library, Lungarno Guicciardini 9, 50125 Florence; 10 am – 6 pm
Mediateca Toscana, Via San Gallo 25, 50129 Florence; 10 am – 1 pm / 2 – 7 pm
Centro Studi La Pira, Via dei Pescioni 3, 50123 Florence, 9  am – 7 pm
Fondazione Santa Maria Nuova, Piazza Santa Maria Nuova 1, 50122 Florence; 10 am-1 pm / 3 – 7 pm
SACI/ Worthington Library, Palazzo dei Cartelloni, Via Sant Antonio 11, 50123 Florence; 9 am – 9 pm
Syracuse University Florence/ Syracuse Florence Library, Piazza Fra’ Girolamo Savonarola 15, 50132 Florence; 9 am -1.30 pm / 3 – 8 pm
The other spaces are visitable in their opening hours. We invite the public to pass by the sites to see the shows and collect the pages of the catalogue dedicated to each individual archive free of charge.

Villa Romana, as part of the Cantiere Toscana project, supported by the Region of Tuscany – Toscanaincontemporanea2018 and in collaboration with BHMF, is organizing a series of mini-exhibitions, tours and presentations based on private and public archives, collections and libraries throughout Florence with holdings that reflect the realities and histories of African and African Diasporic people and their representation. This series of shows from the 27th-29th of November creates a virtual map of this archival presence in the city. A resulting catalogue intends to assist future research while providing insight to people who visit the range of spaces dislocated throughout Florence and beyond with which we are in collaboration.