CO-ima. Controversial Images. A Framework for an Inclusive and Interdisciplinary Approach to Transcultural Heritage

The Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall movements have rekindled the debate on the legitimacy of monuments dedicated to people with a controversial history because of their involvement in the Atlantic trade or in colonial activities. This controversy has touched Italy marginally and superficially, even though some images stirred protests against monuments and buildings in public spaces (such as the representation of the prophet Mohammed in San Petronio in Bologna, the monument to the Quattro Mori in Livorno, the defacing of Montanelli’s statue in Milan or the protest against the memorial to the Viceroy of Italian East Africa, Graziani, in Affile, Rome). As both in the United Stated and in Europe the argument has concerned also classical, modern, and contemporary literary works, cinema and television, it is apparent that the core of the issue should not be restricted to the alleged constraints of the so-called cancel culture, but lies instead in the established "power of images". In line with the recent literature on Visual Studies, we assume images as mental, literary, or linguistic icons revealing the complex relationship between representation, power relations and reality. The main purpose of this project is to identify effective strategies to deal with “controversial images” portraying racialized and minoritized social, gender, sex, and religious groups (Jews, Muslims, Turks, Blacks, women etc.) in different cultural fields and media. In tackling a present and a future that will be increasingly multireligious and transcultural, the project thus responds to a challenge that has a global reach. This issue will be addressed with an interdisciplinary, postcolonial and intersectional approach entwining theoretical reflection and practical actions, within a longue durée perspective stretching from the early modern period to the contemporary age, a geographical focus on the Marche region and a Euro-Mediterranean comparative range. The international research team (with its interdisciplinary competencies and heterogeneous positionalities) will deal with case studies (analyzed from the global to the local and vice versa) and specific research activities. The local dimension will be considered as a pilot “micro-laboratory” in which it will be possible to verify how many historical and social variables operate in the selected area. In order to identify a framework that could be applied to other paradigmatic territories, we will explore in a comparative perspective similar case studies outside Italy. Our project will be mainly focused on: images of “religious otherness” in the Marche region in comparison with similar cases in Spain and Croatia; the identification and social enhancement of private and public collections in museums and libraries linked to the colonial past in the Marche region (diaries, memorabilia, African artifacts, children literature for propaganda purposes) in comparison with similar collections and the good practices adopted in Berlin; the representation of migrants and refugees in contemporary Italian literature; the current practice of blackface in public Italian television. Regardless of its ‘artistic’ quality, this important section of the regional and national cultural heritage (problematic, contested and/or uncritically celebrated) clearly affects the present and shapes the future in a perturbing way, especially because a substantial public debate and participatory projects are missing. Up to now, apart from few initiatives of grassroots activism, there are no institutional programs focused on planning suitable information devices and pedagogical actions to contextualize, resignify and display the complexity of this heritage and its ‘afterlife’. For this reason, the project requires a challenging series of actions. In addition to the identification, mapping, and study of controversial images, the team will work using qualitative tools (e.g. focus groups) that promote community participation in order to detect different perceptions and meanings of this cultural heritage. The heterogeneous composition of the group (as to gender, age, and cultural backgrounds) will help us to decentralize the dominant gaze, to question the received rules operating in the field of visuality, to build a more inclusive community of fruition, and to find an inclusive, transcultural common language. This latter goal will be particularly important in order to propose concrete and inclusive models of communication to deal with controversial images, such as pilot projects in museums. The research results will be disseminated through a festival to be held in Macerata, an international scientific conference organized by the University of Macerata, and activities aimed at engaging locally a wider audience, such as guided tours with physical or virtual itineraries based on the project’s controversial heritage and small exhibitions of colonial objects, books, and documents held in Macerata libraries.