An interesting report on Pro/fuga and the way it tries to confront the exploitative conditions of migrant workers in the Foggia area of Puglia, Italy, just came out on Meltingpot. Definitely worth the read. More information on the current situation is being regularly collected by OMB.

Mediterranea has finally reached Europe’s movie screens.

The critics were enthusiastic about this debut movie of Jonas Carpignano, a young Italian-African-American director who received the critic’s prize during this years’ Cannes festival. The movie (a coproduction between Italy, France, the US, Germany and Qatar), which was filmed in Morocco and Calabria, tells the story of two immigrants from Burkina Faso who reach Italy after a long journey through the Libyan desert, and get involved in the revolt of Rosarno of 2010. Mediterranea is a story about the precariousness of globalisation, the author mentions, but also about prejudice and what being a migrant in contemporary Europe is like.

I must admit I haven’t yet seen the movie, but as soon as I do I will post my impressions. In the meantime you can read the Guardian’s review here.

 Camille Hawthorne just posted an extensive review of Igiaba Scego’s novel ‘Adua‘, on Africa as a Country. Hawthorne, whose research analyses the politics of Blackness in Italy, diaspora theory, and postcolonial science and technology studies, situates the novel in the persistent expressions of racism in Italy, but also in experiences of a more liminal kind. Rather than depicting subjects “trapped between two worlds,” she writes, Scego’s novel succeeds in portraying a range of experiences that–while still structured by racism, misogyny, and other axes of power–can do justice to the changing face of Italy today.

Colonial representations -if at all admitted- have been pretty much dominated by the Italian conquest perspective, but that image is slowly starting to change, thanks to the contribution of Sego and others. Also have a look at the interesting lecture Sego gave at NYU.

Further to my posts on the Black Mediterranean, I signal two interesting events this and the next month, on in Florence, and one in Milan.

The Florence conference and exhibition Black Portraitures II: Imaging the Black Body and Re-staging Histories (28-31 May) offers comparative perspectives on the historical and contemporary role played by photography, art, film, literature, and music in referencing the image of the black body in the West. Reflections include the art collection of NYU’s Villa La Pietra, the historical villa and home of the New York University Florence program where the conference is held -including a collection of ornamental black sculptures known as “Blackamoors” that have become an important colonial trope.

On 14 may-2 June in Milan at the Fabbrica del Vapore, another post-colonial reflection takes place, involving a series of film screenings inspired by Edward Said‘s work on Orientalism. The event is called Notes on Orientalism. Video practices at the age of radical difference and you can find more information here. 

Amongst others, the event hosts a screening of Sven Augustijnen‘s Spectres, on the murder(ers) of Patricre Lumumba.

The event also shows Renzo Martens‘ provocative art project ‘Episode III: Enjoy Poverty’, which represents an emancipation programme Martens set up in the midst of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s endless civil war. Mimicking international charity and aid organisations, Martens’ project encourages the local population to reap the benefits of their greatest resource: poverty. The piece is the third in a series of films that, by enacting their own parameters, try to make visible their own complicity in a world obscured by depictions of it.