On 23rd, 25th and 26th November our artistic project (Memorie) In Ascolto, realised as part of the festival Futura Memoria e Contemporaneamente Roma Festival, 2019, inhabited the Iris market in Centocelle, Rome. The project (which we talked about here, as well as on Artribune and Teatro e Critica) consisted of two site-specific installations for local residents, customers and passers-by. It was an invitation to stop by, to listen, to let go of those superstructures and filters that often influence our way of thinking and our analytical critique of society, taking us away from our path towards recognisability and discovery of the collective and the individual self.

The initiative was integrated into the market’s everyday life, a different place, far away from the spaces where people normally engage with art and culture; a space which triggered direct encounters between the public and the artists, as well as the transmission of memories which will widen the archives of contemporary society.

In the first one, a five-channel video installation, musicians Clavdio, David Blank, Mudimbi, Technoir and Vhelade talked about their art, influences, creative process, motherlands and plural identities, also touching, both directly and subtly, on issues surrounding colonialism, racism, adoption and sexual orientation.

The second one consisted of a reading performance carried out by the authors of our first limited edition printed fanzine, which contains the short stories Hunger [La fame] by Eleonora Chigbolu, Looms [Telai] by Louis Fabrice Tshimanga, The exercise of waiting  [L’esercizio dell’Attesa] by Claudia Galal, On Tram 3 [Sul 3] by Livio Ghilardi. It was a very special performance that started and repeated like a loop any time the audience sat down to listen to the reading.