DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti
Fondato nel 2007 | Founded in 2007
Sandi Hilal
Beit Sahour, Palestina (1973), vive e lavora a Stoccolma, Svezia | Beit Sahour, Palestine (1973), lives and works in Stockholm,
Sweden
Alessandro Petti
Pescara, Italia (1973), vive e lavora a Stoccolma, Svezia | Pescara, Italy (1973), lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden
Ente di Decolonizzazione – Borgo Rizza 2022
legno, intonaco, video | wood, plaster, video
Il progetto è realizzato grazie al sostegno dell’Italian Council (10 Edizione, 2021) programma di promozione dell’ arte contemporanea italiana nel mondo, della Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea del Ministero della cultura | Project supported by the Italian Council (10th Edition 2021) program to promote Italian contemporary art in the world by the Directorate- General for Contemporary Creativity for the Italian Ministry of Culture
Courtesy degli artisti | Courtesy of the artists
Ph Amedeo Benestante
In 1940, the Italian Fascist regime established the “Entity of Colonization of Sicilian Latifundium” following the model of the “Entity of Colonization of Libya” and colonial models in Eritrea and Ethiopia. These territories were considered by the regime “empty,” “underdeveloped,” and “backward” and therefore in need to be “reclaimed,” “modernized,” and “repopulated.” For this purpose, the “Entity of Colonization” inaugurated in Sicily eight new rural towns and as many remained unfinished. In the last years, the right-wing Sicilian regional government in an effort to relegitimize fascist policies, decided to fund the architectural conservation of the agricultural towns built by the “Entity of Colonization of Sicilian Latifundium”, restoring them as they were originally built.
The art installation called Ente di Decolonizzazione – Borgo Rizza profanes the Entity of colonization of the Sicilian Latifundium, by decomposing and recomposing its facade in several modules-sittings that will be reused as platform of an open discursive space where the public is invited to reconsider critically the social, political and economic effect of fascist, colonial and modernist heritage and at the same time is invited to image collectively new common uses.
The first activation of the work took place in May at the Mostra d’Oltremare in Napoli which first opened in 1940. Conceived as a colossal exhibition to display the territories and people overseas in areas colonised by the fascist regime, it closed only after 40 days from after its opening, when Italy entered the Second World War. These series of decolonial assemblies, aim to continue our collective research by learning from different sites and by building alliances with people that feel the urgency to question modernist, colonial and fascist heritage.
– DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti