CONF Nov 10, 2024

Colonial Collections in Italy and Europe (Padua, 11-13 Nov 24)

Padua, Palazzo Liviano, Aula Sartori, Nov 11–13, 2024

Maria Cecilia Lovato, University of Padua

The international conference Collezioni coloniali in Italia e nel contesto europeo: persistenze e trasformazioni [Colonial Collections in Italy and Europe: Continuities and Transformations] will take place at the Università di Padova between November 11th and November 13th, 2024.

The conference aims to explore the relations – including discrepancies – between Italian colonial collections in a variety of institutions (national, war, and missionary museums, university collections, etc.) and those in the rest of Europe. By this approach, the discussion moves away from the focus on the national apparatus and state ideologies towards comparative and transnational readings that put Italian institutions within their European context. Our main focus is on how Italian colonial collections (mostly those formed between the 19th and early 20th centuries) have been historically used to consolidate new political identities, and how they can be resignified today for different audiences and aims.

Some of the questions we are looking forward to discussing in our conference include:
- How did Italian colonial collections resemble or diverge, in their collecting practices as well as in their installation, those of other European nations?
- To what extent are the original colonial displays in national museums, university institutions, and local galleries still in place?
- What significant changes have been implemented and how have these collections been resemantized?
- How did the role of the collectors, curators, and designers of these displays change from the founding of these institutions to the present?
- How did the colonial views of individual collectors, designers, and scholars influence their work for the institutions under exam?
- Who were the intended visitors to these museums, and what kind of experience of colonialism were they meant to have?

PROGRAM:

11 November, 2024

15.00 Saluti istituzionali: Giovanna Valenzano (Direttrice del Dipartimento dei Beni culturali, Università di Padova)

15.15 Introduzione al convegno
Giuliana Tomasella (Università di Padova), Towards a comparative approach to the study of European colonial museums

16.00 Storia e riletture, intorno al Museo delle Civiltà e oltre
Ambra Cascone (Università di Padova), Allestimenti, pubblici e comunicazione nel Museo Coloniale di Roma (1923-1956): verso una ricostruzione storico-critica
Carmen Belmonte (Università di Roma Tre/Bibliotheca Hertziana - Max Planck Institute for Art History), Staging History: Nineteenth-Century Objects in the Collections of the Former Colonial Museum in Rome

Coffee-break

17.30
Gaia Delpino (Museo delle Civiltà, Rome), Collezioni coloniali. Processi e riletture al Museo delle Civiltà
Richard Tsogang Fossi (Technische Universität, Berlin), Stolen past, invisible presence, unquestioned continuities in a decolonial age

20.00 Dinner

12 November, 2024

9.00 Restituzioni della memoria [Restitutions of Memory]
Marta Nezzo (Università di Padova), Le molte vite dell’oggetto: pensando a una restituzione culturale
Guido Abbattista e Ginevra Zelaschi (Università di Trieste), Le raccolte della Novara: frammenti da una circumnavigazione (1857-1859)

Coffee-break

11.00
Terri Dendy (National Army Museum, London), Returning an Emperor’s Hair: practical guidance on the repatriation of objects from the National Army Museum Collection
Francesco Frizzera e Camillo Zadra (Museo Storico Italiano della Guerra, Rovereto), Generali, esperienza coloniale e musei. Un secolo di trasformazioni nelle esposizioni del Museo Storico Italiano della Guerra
Laura Moure Cecchini (Università di Padova), Colonial memories and material culture in the regimental museum «Giovani Fascisti» (Ponti sul Mincio)

13.30 Lunch

15.00 Musei europei: vecchi e nuovi allestimenti [European Museums: Past and Present Displays]
Alessandra Galizzi Kroegel (Università di Trento), The New Display of the African collections from the Berlin Ethnological Museum in the Humboldt Forum
Sara Tassi (Africamuseum, Tervuren), PROvenance research for Museum Audiences: a gender perspective. The PROMA project at the Africamuseum, Tervuren (Belgium)
Luca Quattrocchi (Università di Siena), Dall’Esposizione missionaria al Museo Anima mundi: le collezioni etnologiche vaticane

Coffee-break

17.00
Sara Chiesa (Museo delle Culture di Milano), La sala dell’Africa coloniale del Museo delle Culture (MUDEC) di Milano: tra storia collezionistica e risignificazioni
Francesca Gallo (Sapienza Università di Roma), I linguaggi del contemporaneo nei processi di decolonizzazione dei patrimoni: esempi e problemi in Europa
Emanuele Ertola (Università di Siena), La cultura coloniale italiana in prospettiva transimperiale: incontri, cooperazioni, contaminazioni

20.00 Dinner

13 November, 2024

9.00 Raccolte nascoste: musei universitari, musei missionari [Hidden Collections: University and Missionary museums]
Christopher Morton (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford), “Suffering is the badge of all our tribe”: towards a history and future for the Oxford marara (tree carving) from New South Wales, Australia
Lucia Piccioni (Centre Alexandre-Koyré- École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris), La storia delle collezioni dei calchi facciali dei musei italiani di antropologia nel contesto europeo: particolarità e caratteristiche comuni

Coffee-break

11.00
Laure Cadot (freelance conservator), Caring for bodies, repairing injuries? Overview and prospects for conservation-restoration in the decolonial approach to collections of human remains in France
Livia Spano (Università di Siena), Il Museo etiope Guglielmo Massaia a Frascati: una storia di missioni, colonialismo e propaganda fascista
Maria Pia Guermandi (Consulente dell’Unione Europea per i Progetti Europei per il Patrimonio), Nuove leggi, vecchi strabismi: il difficile percorso normativo della decolonizzazione museale

Final discussion

13.30 Lunch

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Full program: https://www.beniculturali.unipd.it/www/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/11-13nov_programma-pieghevole-DEF.pdf

Reference:
CONF: Colonial Collections in Italy and Europe (Padua, 11-13 Nov 24). In: ArtHist.net, Nov 10, 2024 (accessed Dec 7, 2024), <https://arthist.net/archive/43126>.

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