Workshop for educators, museum workers, teachers, museologists, art therapists
Saturday 25 January | 9 a.m.
Friulian Museum of Natural History
via Sabbadini 32, Udine
Starting from the artistic residence of the Italian-Somali photographer and archivist Leyla Degan in FVG, the project proposes a collective reflection on the Italian presence in the former colonies through the critical and conscious use of archive photographs.
A practical workshop to recognise the power structures intrinsic to colonial photography, reflecting on how these images construct and maintain racial narratives and hierarchies of domination. New ways of approaching archival documents will be explored and new practices of critical observation and preservation will be proposed to interrogate the contents of museums and archives.
The workshop will see the museum not only as a place of preservation, but as a space of contact, where it becomes essential to question the
meaning of the preserved heritage and the most appropriate ways of displaying and disseminating it.
Key themes and good practices:
Photography as an instrument of colonial violence: analysis of images as testimonies of a violent past. How to rework these memories to promote critical awareness?
Participatory archiving and counter-archiving practices: community involvement and access to transform archives into spaces for reflection.
Starting from Leyla Degan’s experiences, examples and projects developed by the SITAAD duo (Leyla Degan and Naima Hassan) will be presented. Participants will put into practice the methodologies learnt in group activities, confronting the complexity of archival documents and the ethical challenges related to their use. Methodologies that can be replicated in different contexts: from museum visits to creative workshops, from art therapy sessions to museum workshops for adults, girls and boys.
PROGRAMME
9 a.m. | Breakfast with the artist! To make introductions in an informal atmosphere and recharge your batteries, breakfast will be served in the museum atrium.
9.30 a.m. | Greetings by the Councillor for Education, University and Culture of the Municipality of Udine Federico Angelo Pirone and introductory overview by the organisers. Followed by a speech by Dr. Paola Visentini (Friulian Museum of Natural History) illustrating the materials and archive that inspired the action.
9.45 a.m. | Three pillars for de-colonising the museum. Speech by Leyla Degan and illustration of good practices and projects in the educational room of the museum.
10.30 a.m.| Group work, discussion and final return.
THE ARTIST
Leyla Degan is an Italian-Somali artist and photographic archivist based in Milan.
She works across the boundaries of archives and visual arts. In 2023 she was artist-archivist-in-residence at Numeroventi, Recovery Plan Florence. She has presented work at Acre Hub, Curating Black Art in Italy, Africa Center and Tate Modern.
Together with Naima Hassan, she founded SITAAD, an artistic platform and collaboration. As part of sitaad, a type of devotional gathering organised by Somali women, the duo experiments with artistic formats within colonial sites, museums and archives. They are currently Hub Residencies Fellows at the College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota. La borsa di studio biennale culminerà con la presentazione di due progetti a lungo termine, Transmigrating Cassettes and Studio Sawiro.
HOW TO PARTECIPATE
Free admission, subject to prior booking, subject to availability prenotazioni@iodeposito.orgIngresso gratuito, su prenotazione, fino ad esaurimento posti a prenotazioni@iodeposito.org
