Obbligato (Obliged) is a meditation on social, moral and communal obligations.

Sporcarsi le mani per fare un lavoro pulito and Black Archive Alliance Vol. I and II are the two exhibitions of the February programming of MAD Murate Art District that are part of the 5th edition of Black History Month Florence. The initiatives of this new edition of the BHMF festival involve MAD Murate Art District also include the screening of a documentary-testimony by the director Sabrina Onana on the points of view of the “new Italians”, a performance by the artist Samiya Bashir and the Murate Art Lab with the artist Muna Mussie.

Drawing upon one of the founding principles of cosmopolitanism, that of a moral obligation towards all humans, this edition looks at what Leopold Senghor stated in a speech at Palazzo Vecchio in 1962 as Africa’s role in world of restoring a full humanity so that the world may recover from the deficit rendered through oppression, exploitation and historical amnesia. In jazz Obbligato is a counter melody that can have equal importance and dominance as the central melody line. In a moment where media and numerous political leaders have pushed society to fear the extinguishing of one history through the inclusion of alternative perspectives, these events serve as a reminder that when we have multiple voices and histories we have a more complete understanding of history itself and a restored sense of humanity for all.

A Villa Romana project in collaboration with Black History Month Florence

Black Archive Alliance brings an unusual perspective to Florence: that of nine students searching for signs of an African presence in the city. The project, which resulted from the collaboration between the Villa Romana and Black History Month Florence and which is now in its second edition, interweaves different areas and time periods. The narratives that emerged from this excavation exercise are fragments of a little-known, if not completely unknown Florence and its political, social and economic entanglements with Africa, Africans and the Diaspora since the 15th century.

The work ranges from research centres par excellence, such as the Biblioteca Laurenziana and the Archivio del Risorgimento, to study centres known mainly to specialists, such as the Istituto Agronomico dell’Oltremare (now one of the headquarters of the Italian Agency for International Cooperation) and the Istituto Geografico Militare, to private collections in Palazzo Pitti with the treasure of the Grand Dukes. The second edition of Black Archive Alliance was carried out as a tutoring format with teachers and scholars in tandem with students, guiding their research. The project collaborated with scholars from Università degli Studi Firenze, Studio Arts College International, NYU Florence, Villa I Tatti, Syracuse University Florence, Santa Reparata International School of Art and ISI Florence.

The exhibition at Murate Art District presents a selection of the research results and links to the exhibition format of Black Archive Alliance’s first edition, which used information stands at various locations and institutions in the city to reveal the unknown or forgotten stories of moments of contact and encounters between Florence and Africa.
Curated by Justin Randolph Thompson, BHMF and Agnes Stillger, Villa Romana

curated by BHMF and Valentina Gensini, artistic director of MAD Murate Art District, in collaboration with Villa Romana (Florence), Civitella Ranieri Foundation (Umbertide) and Galleria Continua (San Gimignano).

Until March 14th the works of the artists M’Barek Bouhchichi (Morocco), Adji Dieye (Italy/Senegal), Sasha Huber (Switzerland/Finland), Delio Jasse (Angola/Italy), Amelia Umuhire (Rwanda/Germany), Nari Ward (Jamaica/USA) will be exhibited.
The artists in the exhibition each draw from experiences of staying in Italy in cultural production sites such as Rome, Umbertide, Milan and Florence and their works are united by an insistence on personal narratives as a replacement for the flattened projections of “Blackness”, with a meditation on the past as an indicator of what is coming.

An exhibition that examines the implementation of social obligations towards dirty work, the shortcomings of cultural assimilation, the annihilation of history and policies of respectability