Museo Fantasma (Ghost Museum) is the title of the workshop led by Leone Contini at NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti and through diverse locations in the EUR district, which discusses and questions the implications of ethnographic collections in relation to the Italian colonial heritage. This very relationship is the focus of Contini’s attention, who will attempt an “evocative reconstruction” of this Ghost Museum: the dismembered collection of the former Colonial Museum,  a fascist institution dedicated to the people and cultures from Italian colonies in Africa, which was open from 1923 to 1971.

The museum’s collection, which shows a strong colonial framework and clearly testifies to the violent subjugation imposed by Italy on the African colonies, was dismembered in the year the museum closed and relocated to various sites around the city. Today, it is partly kept in the storages of MuCIV – Museo delle Civiltà at EUR district.

Leone Contini, Museo sepolto, Rome, 2016-17

The workshop aims to bring to light a history – that of Italian colonialism in Africa – that has been intentionally forgotten, and at the same time, discuss the Euro-centric paradigms on which the discipline of museography applied to ethnographic and other collections is based.
The workshop includes a visit to the collections of the former Colonial Museum at the Museo delle Civiltà at EUR, also including a tour in the neighboring areas.
The first day of the workshop will end with the public presentation of Leone Contini’s work, on 22 September at 7 pm, in which the artist will introduce the main topics and methodologies of his artistic practice.

Schedule 
September 22nd  h 10 am – 5 pm
September 23rd  h 11 am – 1 pm  and h 3 – 5 pm
September 24th  h 10 am –  1 pm

Info | The workshop is by reservation only. For info and reservations: hiddenhistories.rome@gmail.com