https://silviasusanna.net silviasusanna.net Thu, 11 Dec 2025 17:40:33 +0000 https://silviasusanna.net en https://silviasusanna.net/Nav Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:26:28 +0000 silviasusanna.net https://silviasusanna.net/Nav ︎︎︎What “really” happened?︎︎︎Why matter matters&nbsp; ︎︎︎wóyde cineforum ︎︎︎What is the thickness of coloniality? ︎︎︎Beyond the Façade of Fascism ︎︎︎Learning from the Stratigraphy ︎︎︎Diffractive Windows ︎︎︎2cm the thickness of Fascism ︎︎︎Nourishing Conversations ︎︎︎un-domesticated homes︎︎︎normality past projects&amp;collaborations https://silviasusanna.net/why-matter-matters Mon, 27 Jan 2025 18:14:45 +0000 silviasusanna.net https://silviasusanna.net/why-matter-matters Why matter matters / wóyde cineforum ︎︎︎event 13.11.2024 Urgent Pedagogies, IASPIS, StockholmVIIth session of wóyde cineforum intro by Magnus Ericsson moderators: Silvia Susanna, Alice Pontiggia and Steffie De Gaetano&nbsp; guests: Pelin Tan, Susan Schuppli <img width="1142" height="886" width_o="1142" height_o="886" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f52be75b497e275d567f3f7c5a8df07e62edd4dc5c85219921e8aedfbc073113/woyde-cineforum-up.png" data-mid="225759228" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f52be75b497e275d567f3f7c5a8df07e62edd4dc5c85219921e8aedfbc073113/woyde-cineforum-up.png" /> Based on a selection of films, the event posed the question: Is it possible to see matter as an ally in shaping our lives? --- To break the modern paradigm of matter as an inert stock of resources available at human disposal, shaped from matter to material, or as a subjugated symbol of unjust power structures, or even as a weaponized tool, we are proposing short documentaries and film materials that aim at disclosing hidden narratives or proposing new points of view over the “perceivable world”. Is it possible to look at matter as an ally in building our life? We encourage enhancing your sensitivity as bodily matter when viewing the program. <img width="1920" height="1028" width_o="1920" height_o="1028" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/944067ca7dc64f1db5132372ad7c9304b1609d683c6295e963452cfc5d052d1b/1.png" data-mid="225759004" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/944067ca7dc64f1db5132372ad7c9304b1609d683c6295e963452cfc5d052d1b/1.png" /> Il CapoYuri Ancarani, 2010, 2’53’’ (excerpt)How beautiful a crumbling desire can be? How many hidden faces are there behind the construction industry chain? What are these landscapes’ meanings? How disturbing can it be for our belly to watch this video? <img width="1867" height="1024" width_o="1867" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/90af5102a5dd27be89fc91af662e85e94569fb981c68f3098e3192ef371b6d88/2B.png" data-mid="225759006" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/90af5102a5dd27be89fc91af662e85e94569fb981c68f3098e3192ef371b6d88/2B.png" /> Cu-PornColectivo Cenex, 2020, 10’41’’How sexy can a mine be? How does copper extraction affect Chilean sexual behavior? A lovely rhyming description of cruel realities. <img width="1769" height="938" width_o="1769" height_o="938" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/120d506d377464a39a2fb3059eede5c7d5004881e969e56afa5a4dabec891bbd/3.png" data-mid="225759008" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/120d506d377464a39a2fb3059eede5c7d5004881e969e56afa5a4dabec891bbd/3.png" /> La Via Della PomiceArchivio Luce Cinecittà, 1961, 0’46’’ [ITA, NO SUBS]Celebration of extractivism and industrialization of natural stone introduced by patriarchal irony. All in 46 seconds! <img width="1739" height="884" width_o="1739" height_o="884" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d811dc5b90dfc8ccba2832752c85b2b9b7bcea3b3418652434440def41e01bda/4.png" data-mid="225759013" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d811dc5b90dfc8ccba2832752c85b2b9b7bcea3b3418652434440def41e01bda/4.png" /> How is Made: CementHow is Made/Wondastic Tech, unknown/2024, 5’/8’25’’Please inform yourself on the cement production cycle through a beautifully filmed documentary that probably comes from the 90s, or through a way more futuristically depicted history and production flux of cement with shining views of giant factories.<img width="1920" height="1018" width_o="1920" height_o="1018" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0e1fc8250b90c23ac98075836a3f21459df51302dc4f7cc8caebe9d446b8f4b6/5.png" data-mid="225759014" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0e1fc8250b90c23ac98075836a3f21459df51302dc4f7cc8caebe9d446b8f4b6/5.png" /> Eroded PyramidColectivo Los Ingrávidos, 2018, 8’50’’Experimental video of a Mexican collective that is working on giving new meaning to filmic practice. The video’s description is: The pyramid used to be a mountain. * Please take care, strong flashing lights. <img width="1760" height="878" width_o="1760" height_o="878" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7e2a764fe8ea67e1a7741861f16a965aa54908359c1c27d1f10405715a3e6bd5/6.png" data-mid="225759015" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7e2a764fe8ea67e1a7741861f16a965aa54908359c1c27d1f10405715a3e6bd5/6.png" /> Can the Sun Lie?Susan Schuppli, 2014, 12’51’’Manipulation of evidence and discrimination of knowledge at international court level. What the sun is telling us about environmental changes?<img width="1483" height="795" width_o="1483" height_o="795" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/48a551ca57e0b19d7b82cc285da65a7ff69b4623eb9e5aa0ee3cdcb06ba2afb7/7C.png" data-mid="225759017" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/48a551ca57e0b19d7b82cc285da65a7ff69b4623eb9e5aa0ee3cdcb06ba2afb7/7C.png" /> Material WitnessSusan Schuppli, 2015, 11’22’’ (excerpt)Cit from the author: “The documentary begins with a rumination asking: What does it mean to stand in the place of death knowing that violent things happened in that very location but seeing apparently nothing? Over the course of the video, the landscape itself becomes a mnemonic device for revealing traces of these histories.” <img width="1481" height="781" width_o="1481" height_o="781" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ec1f7a86a272a217a3934d58bf4f9110e8822e3a65b48f6e1366b1fce80e1bfa/8.png" data-mid="225759019" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ec1f7a86a272a217a3934d58bf4f9110e8822e3a65b48f6e1366b1fce80e1bfa/8.png" /> Weaponizing WaterSusan Schuppli, 2023, 4’52’’ (excerpt)Forensic reconstruction of the use of water by armed forces as a weapon against protestors in 2016. <img width="1484" height="792" width_o="1484" height_o="792" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b207f5d9df10475f3524d83ee14e66574d519472c7c7f9a8e0815676bf073b99/9b.png" data-mid="225759020" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b207f5d9df10475f3524d83ee14e66574d519472c7c7f9a8e0815676bf073b99/9b.png" /> Dimeşin / Fenomenolojiyên Dîcleyê I&nbsp; –&nbsp; Walking / Tigris PhenomenologiesPelin Tan, 2023, 5’30’’An assemblage of moving images around and through landscapes of Tigris river of Hasankeyf with elements of Ezidi cosmologies. A phenomenology of experimenting with female landscaping of non-extractivism and its future. The video sceneries were recorded with a cell phone camera between 2021 and 2023 in Çinerîya Ezidi village (Batman, Turkey), where most of the inhabitants left in the 1980s for Germany as migrant workers. The community occasionally lives in both places. &nbsp; ︎ UP EVENT Urgent Pedagogies is a project and platform for inquiry, sharing knowledge and experience through public events and an emerging online archive highlighting and discussing both practice and theory. It aims to serve as a common resource, bringing together practitioners and researchers from a plurality of contexts, experiences, and backgrounds to be in dialogue and think together. wóyde cineforum is an experimental research tool working through the formula film projection + collective discussion. It is also both the name of the (mainly) digital place where the practice is activated, as well as a mutual learning practice for deepening the knowledge that can stem from collective confrontation in a safe space. https://silviasusanna.net/what-really-happened Fri, 11 Jul 2025 15:26:19 +0000 silviasusanna.net https://silviasusanna.net/what-really-happened What “really” happened? ︎︎︎ 23-29 June 2025 /&nbsp;4th annual Gathering&nbsp; Borgo ex, Carlentini, Siracusa, Italy What “really” happened? is a project that reflects on the gap between lived experience and official documentation. It was conceived as a game to test the distance that often arises between the multiple, entangled human and non-human agencies involved in an event, and how that event is later recorded or remembered, ultimately how its history is created. The project was&nbsp; produced by the fictional&nbsp; “Resistance Dreamers” label and launched via Instagram. It was made for the 4th annual gathering at the Ente di Decolonizzazione with the desire to put knowledge into practice. The instruction showed the components of the game: the box, the envelope and myself. One person, selected from the participants, was invited to read aloud the letter signed by a qualified independent archaeologist, coming from the future, requesting consent from the current visitors of Borgo Ex to share a vocal message.&nbsp;With everyone’s consent, the audio was then played in English. (an Italian version was also available). &nbsp; <img width="312" height="470" width_o="312" height_o="470" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a5dcf7a1ca45c4197348cd303d0c6b6e69374ed04c245efc3c9407d843516dd2/02.JPG" data-mid="242506167" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/312/i/a5dcf7a1ca45c4197348cd303d0c6b6e69374ed04c245efc3c9407d843516dd2/02.JPG" /> <img width="311" height="419" width_o="311" height_o="419" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7fb5481dfd6868745b47992dc050d0c2a0a53fa4e964d1f6dc8d2322cb9860ce/01.JPG" data-mid="242506166" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/311/i/7fb5481dfd6868745b47992dc050d0c2a0a53fa4e964d1f6dc8d2322cb9860ce/01.JPG" /> <img width="312" height="470" width_o="312" height_o="470" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d8d463f44fcf4d1c50be225ab02386c45b6a3290745af9134cb108a7553f262a/05.JPG" data-mid="242506170" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/312/i/d8d463f44fcf4d1c50be225ab02386c45b6a3290745af9134cb108a7553f262a/05.JPG" /> Once the box was opened and the devices were chosen, the participants independently decided to document their present. In parallel, each day a message and an object emerged from the box. At the end of the game, the participants returned the data they had collected. Below are some reflections written immediately after the end of the game.&nbsp; A text with an analysis of what I understood will be released soon. --- # June 2025 In the context of my research, it became necessary to understand the role of memory, how it is constructed, authorized, and circulated. The game was conceived to investigate what kind of memories we need to produce today for the future we want to inhabit. At the same time, it was an occasion to interrogate my research process at the Borgo: what am I doing now that I might regret in the future? If the future were to ask us to tell the story of our present, what kind of information would we need to send, and in what format? Would they be images? Sounds? Texts? Or do we need something else entirely? Who has the interest, the commitment, the influence—or the power—to document what happens?Committing to documentation implies an intentional act: a will to leave a trace. Is everybody feeling entitled to do it?&nbsp;What kind of archive should we be moving toward? From the construction of images and the media engaged, to the language used in a text, down to the materials and formats we choose—everything should be carefully considered to avoid reproducing dominant visual and epistemic regimes. Therefore, it is essential to acknowledge that the way we frame things also frames ourselves—and the things that perhaps do not wish to be framed. What kind of memory do we need to enable the life we desire?&nbsp;What is a memory at the end of the day? A document? A monument? Or something else?&nbsp; This project aimed to challenge the limits of documentary memory and open a space for experimentation with counter-narratives and critical reimaginings of how we relate to the past, the present, and the possible—questioning which practices are recognized as forms of memory, which are excluded, and for what reasons.This game was also a journey into the way I approach my research on the borgo—how I produce it and for whom. Each object that materialised in the box represented the most unsettling, yet possible, extractive-colonial outcome of the many aspects of understanding I have been sharing over the years. For me the most effective means of articulating a critique of a normalized, dominant mode of knowledge production—one potentially applicable to my own research—was to employ parody, foregrounding the material expressions of specific epistemic frameworks: the medicalized register (the flyer), the scientific–laboratory register (samples in Petri dishes and vials), and the museified/extractive/merchandising register (tote bag, stickers, museum ticket). It worked to such an extent that the game also generated a hyperstition. The fictional stickers created for it closely resembled the pins actually produced for the inauguration of the association, revealing how futurability is conditioned by the production schemes we have inherited. It wasn’t clairvoyance—it was predictability. How can we construct and inhabit a daily life that resists predictability and therefore capitalist subsumption? # September 2025A research ally asked me why this game is centered on AI—why frame the entire discourse around artificial intelligence if it’s not even my field of research?Instinctively, I replied that it was useful for the fictionalization process: when imagining a future grounded in the present, AI will likely become the primary basis for knowledge production. Later, upon further reflection, I recalled a compelling article written by Matteo Pasquinelli. In hindsight, fragments of his thinking on algorithms clearly resonated within the game's logic. As Pasquinelli argues, the algorithm is not a contemporary invention, but a derivation of pre-existing social forms of automation. One might ask: what does the algorithm have to do with memory, preservation and materiality? Wait, a premise is needed! Pasquinelli, in his article published in Jacobin, explains that the origins of deep learning can be traced back to the “Perceptron,” the first neural network. This system automated "statistical tools of multimedia analysis" borrowed from psychometrics—a discipline that quantified intelligence through averages drawn from populations that inhabit social injustice, therefore inevitably reinforcing pre-existing social disparities around class, race, and gender. Artificial intelligence is thus an accelerated, expanded, and centralized continuation of this historical accumulation of power—a tool for controlling populations—whose epistemological framework remains invisible. This invisibility allows for distraction about how these machines "think" or "reflect" or hide the political urgency to re-discuss how the algorithm works, performs, and impacts. Returning to the automation embedded in conservation practices: epistemological frameworks are not transparent and the institutional systems through which they are reproduced often suppress critique, stifle the questioning of values, and block political re-orientation. This is because preservation is not merely about safeguarding buildings per se, but functions more as a strategy of institutional preservation of a specific system of values. &nbsp; ︎ Entity of Decolonisation https://silviasusanna.net/woyde-cineforum Mon, 27 Jan 2025 17:32:52 +0000 silviasusanna.net https://silviasusanna.net/woyde-cineforum wóyde cineforum ︎︎︎research methodology developed with Alice Pontiggia and Steffie De Gaetano <img width="1200" height="800" width_o="1200" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/09fb38d0946c5c25292f74042c1890fb6d9bbac7d2483f434d66e5e9762c90b7/woyde-cineforum_laura-fiorio.jpg" data-mid="225759246" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/09fb38d0946c5c25292f74042c1890fb6d9bbac7d2483f434d66e5e9762c90b7/woyde-cineforum_laura-fiorio.jpg" /> photo by Laura Fiorio The English term vision comes from the Latin noun visio, derivation of visus, past participle of the verb videre, which means “to see”. The ancient Greek οιδα (oida) and the Sanskrit वेत्ति (vétti), among other verbs, came from the same Proto-Indo-European root weid- (that expresses the act of seeing), similarly to the Latin videre, but instead came to signify “to know”. The explanation lies with the Proto-Indo-European verb wóyde, from which all of the three verbs derive, that evolved into “to have seen”, a verb form conjugated to the present perfect and therefore expressing the knowledge production consequent to a past action of seeing. Therefore, in essence: I know because I saw. Yet, what does each of us see? Has everyone seen the same thing? Far vision, close-ups, distracted passages, microscopes movements, indirect images, clear vision, blurred lines… While we might have shared the same lens, our visions can differ and might be divided. Stemming from the verb divide, division seems to derive from the Latin union between the prefix dus-, which afterwards became dis– and the root vid-, the same root found in videre. Although the prefix disis- is often interpreted as a negation, it could rather be re-understood as suggesting a separation: dis-vision as diverse visions.&nbsp; It is exactly in these dis-visions that we establish our mutual learning and research moment. By confronting different visions we are pushed to embrace a plurality of interpretations on the same theme. Besides, in conversation with each other we can en-vision and conceive new imaginaries as well as create new meanings. Triggering our ability to imagine, envisioning means to conceive a thought in one’s mind. This whole process, thus, is building up precisely the place we strive to create: a safe space where the pluriversalities of reflections raised by the viewing of the video materials can encounter, and where decolonial and demodern futures can be envisioned from this collection of divided visions. wóyde Cineforum is therefore both the name of the (mainly) digital place where the practice is activated, as well as an experimental research tool for investigating the knowledge that can stem from the vision of film materials followed by a collective conversation. how does it work?Before each session, the invited guests receive the programmed film via email, so they can watch the proposed selection in their preferred space-time before the scheduled online collective moment, that is precisely the hosting of the forum. Each session is built around one specific topic, emerging from our personal or collective research interests or one which has emerged in conversation. So far, the themes proposed have been: the possibilities of inhabiting a female-manifesting-body; the question: what is home?; (un)learning as a way of understanding architecture; agricultural practices as revolutionary tools; the construction and dismantling of power narratives through propaganda, fictions and buildings; pleasure as eco-sexual activism; and the intrinsic and technical knowledge embedded in matter. Thus far, wóyde Cineforum has organized six sessions, one of which was held in person during the 2022 Difficult Heritage Summer School at Borgo&nbsp;Rizza&nbsp;in Sicily. Aware that sight can be a dominant sense over the others in the construction of knowledge, especially in Modern-Western societies, wóyde Cineforum’s curatorial approach position itself within the limits of knowledge production that audiovisual material vision allows, but looking also at the possibilities that authors are experimenting within this medium. That’s why each session is tackling its topic through the confrontation of ever contrasting styles, narratives, registers, languages, epoques and geographies. ︎WÓYDE CINEFORUM&nbsp; wóyde is a st(r)ay project st(r)ay is a neologism expressing the ongoing act of growing together through desires and struggles, walking along paths gone astray and converging in wandering places. We met by chance during DAAS postmaster and by intuit began working together. Because of love and admiration we continue to support each other’s work, and collaborate when possible. st(r)ay is not a collective, nor wishes to be; it is not a brand, neither a model. It is a mutating relation on a journey in which we – Silvia Susanna, Alice Pontiggia and Steffie De Gaetano– are the minimum affective core. https://silviasusanna.net/undomesticated-homes Thu, 11 Dec 2025 17:40:33 +0000 silviasusanna.net https://silviasusanna.net/undomesticated-homes un-domesticated homes ︎︎︎Research developed at the Postmaster’s Course Decolonising Architecture Advanced Studies, Royal College of Art, Stockholmun-domesticated homes is an ongoing research that revolves around independent and non-commissioned intercultural programs taking place and being produced at home. Specifically, it examines how these critical spatial practices contribute to expanding forms of cultural production beyond institutions, "make kin and not (families)", and thus redefining the political agency of the home within cities. The research unfolds through a series of audio conversations with the uncommissioned caretakers of these community-driven programs to understand the socio-economic, political contexts, personal and collective backgrounds, motivations, needs, and desires. The research aims to grasp the aesthetic acts of these critical spatial practices; forms of cultural production beyond the modern domestication of life; modes of socio-political organisation that exceed the dichotomy of private and public spheres, institutions and population; the family as a social unit; and the allegedly universal expectations placed on the home. Ultimately, with the online audio cartography undomesticatedhomes.net&nbsp; the project explores the conversations as an alternative to the dominant image-based architectural knowledge. ... “It all started some years ago…”, Bruno Cuervo&nbsp;told&nbsp;me on the&nbsp;terrace of Casa Gomorra. Bruno, Ana,&nbsp;Mirushka&nbsp;and&nbsp;Letto&nbsp;rented&nbsp;a big&nbsp;cheap apartment&nbsp;in&nbsp;Obrera&nbsp;to live together,&nbsp;and took advantage of this big&nbsp;space&nbsp;for&nbsp;supporting&nbsp;self-managed projects that work in favour of the LGBTTTI community.&nbsp;“We decided to live together as we had the same interests: gender studies, feminism, transfeminism,&nbsp;pornoterrorism, and queer philosophy. We wanted to open a safe space for our community without prejudice, where there is respect for the identity of others.” (Extract from my travel diary: Interview with Bruno&nbsp;Cuervo&nbsp;from&nbsp;Casa Gomorra, Mexico City) “Inició como el habitar juntos de algunas personas, y creció para proyectos. La casa siempre se transforma, no están espacios por clases distintas, cocina, privado, todo se va transformando con el proyecto, y quien participa va cambiando el espacio de la casa.” (Extract from / Transcription of the audio-interview I made with Israel from Bikini Wax, Mexico City) […] In 2016, I was living in Venice and by word of mouth, I learned of a special event in a “secret location”. I followed the white rabbit and an incredible dimension embraced me. From the&nbsp;campiello&nbsp;a unique flux of people was moving between a mystical indoor space and a softly lit&nbsp;garden. A flow of people was inhabiting a cosmos made of urban Venetian singularities, exhibition rooms&nbsp;and&nbsp;convivial places. The outdoor merged with the indoor in a unique&nbsp;pluriverse&nbsp;without fences, for joyful and vibrant discussions where the urban world, the domestic realm, and a specific cultural production were interwoven: it was life! When I met&nbsp;Tobia&nbsp;Tomasi, founder of&nbsp;Casa Punto Croce, the following year, it was clear how this social, generous, dance-loving creature mirrored the atmosphere of&nbsp;Casa Punto Croce. […](Extract from Inside the Domestic Culture of Italy Interview with Jean-Lorin Sterian. Me describing&nbsp;Casa Punto Croce, Venice – https://schloss-post.com/inside-the-domestic-culture-of-italy/) Home is a space of cultural and knowledge production. What happens when the common sense[1] is interrupted by a plan of immanence at home? When the desire for a home is not a roof for a heteronormative family, but the urgency to cultivate a space that materially enables other forms of living.&nbsp;This urgency mainly calls into crisis the modern domestic structure and, therefore, triggers what Jane Rendell named a critical spatial practice. My interest in exploring the meanings of home as a space of cultural and knowledge production beyond inherited traditions began in 2018, after realizing that over the last decade I had come across a series of extemporaneous, independent, homemade cultural programs[2]. Elaborating a discourse from these premises meant opening some dispersed intuitions publicly (Demanio Marittimo) and, in parallel, searching for new home-projects by word-of-mouth. Each practice met so far emerges for specific contextual reasons that reflect the cultural-social identity and background of its un-commissioned initiators. Nevertheless, all the practices I have found stand as a reaction to a lack of spatial representation or belonging to their environment; as an answer to a shortage of experimentation in local institutionalized spaces; or for a fervent desire for community in a safe, temporarily suspended home space. All the home-projects encountered in my research disrupt the modern agenda of domesticated life, give space to a specific community, and are positioned far from the aggressive global corporate capitalism logic. By subverting standardized modern functions—spatialization of typological human activities—and overcoming normalized dichotomies—private/public, guest/host, tradition/innovation—these practices produce a realm for cultural production, social encounter, and community exchange. They are agents of a right to the city through a process of de-modernization.&nbsp;This specific, unreproducible, subtly ground-breaking way of creating community and producing knowledge is the core of these practices. And yet, the reason it seems to be worth formulating a discourse on this phenomenon is not for their similarities, but for the strong differences between them. In fact, their specific cultural programs link specific relative networks; are independent from any other home-made experiences; and emerged without any centralized control, online mediation or offline platform. [1] Common sense: The things we say we know with absolute certainty are things we have learned. The cognitive expression of many common-sense beliefs hides their origin in a social training that induces norms, paradigms for describing the situations that surround our life in the clothes of our behaviour. (Italian foreword of “On Certainty” Ludwig Wittgenstein by Aldo Gargani) [2] The definition of home-made cultural program is by Jean Lorin Sterian, one of my lucky encounters. Jean-Lorin Sterian is a researcher, writer, artist and performer currently based in Bucharest/Romania. In 2008, he opened Iorgean theatre, the first living-room theatre in Romania. He has published several fiction books and one anthropological work related to his experiences of turning his house into a public space for performances. Currently, he is researching signs of what he has stated to be “homemade culture”, meaning theatre, visual and performance art based only in private spaces from all over the world. ... ︎DAAS Decolonizing Architecture Advanced Studies – DAAS- is a series of postmaster courses, public seminars, field studies, publications, and discursive exhibitions that together form a platform for education and research at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. The courses are led by Alessandro Petti, Professor in Architecture and Social Justice, in collaboration with Marie-Louise Richards, lecturer in Architecture, Tatiana Pinto, Roberta Burchardt and Hannah Clarkson as Tutors and with the contributions by guests, among them Walter Mignolo, Joar Nango, Rahel Shawl, Ana Naomi de Sousa, Luca Capuano, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Madina Tlostanova, Eyal Weizman, Emilio Distretti, Mia Fuller, Stefan Jonsson, Shahram Khosravi, Peter Lang, Hrair Sarkissian, Santiago Mostyn, Corina Oprea, Charles Esche, Andrea Cassatella, Sara Pellegrini, Magnus Ericson, Jennifer Nyiraneza Mpyisi, Sabina Sabolovic, and Mekonnen Tesfahuney. https://silviasusanna.net/what-is-the-thickness-of-coloniality Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:26:28 +0000 silviasusanna.net https://silviasusanna.net/what-is-the-thickness-of-coloniality What is the thickness of Coloniality? ︎︎︎congress 23-28.06.2024,&nbsp;Lyon&nbsp; 36th CIHA World Congress (Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art)&nbsp; Panel Desiderata of the Object: Emergent Meaning and Conservation After the Material Turn ChairsAnnika Finne (Institute of Fine Arts New York University, New-York, NY, United States) Emily Frank (New York University, New-York, NY, United States) Matthieu Lelièvre (Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France) <img width="1200" height="1600" width_o="1200" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5b707c6c4f990f9b3c28af1a72ff70c77445943f2a6cf97aa05e61a9fd6e25d1/TARGA-EUROPEA-2.jpeg" data-mid="225812331" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5b707c6c4f990f9b3c28af1a72ff70c77445943f2a6cf97aa05e61a9fd6e25d1/TARGA-EUROPEA-2.jpeg" /> <img width="600" height="375" width_o="600" height_o="375" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/43ab94e3c2f128edc8840c8597f38fbf12f72397966b00a20946892e4d8b73ee/villa-dei-misteri.jpeg" data-mid="225812403" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/43ab94e3c2f128edc8840c8597f38fbf12f72397966b00a20946892e4d8b73ee/villa-dei-misteri.jpeg" /> Cultural heritage offers insights into our past, informs our present and helps shape our identity in the future, yet the national preservation procedures move often as a bureaucratic praxis. In Italy, the critical preservation approach appears with the theory of Cesare Brandi, according to which restoration is the methodological moment of becoming aware of the work of art and cannot operate in direct continuity with the past. Therefore every material intervention is a statement of the recognition of a cultural value to be conveyed. However, this proposition is usually not applicable to buildings of the XX century towards which seems to prevail another principle conceived by Cesare Brandi: the re-establishment of the potential unity of the work of art without committing artistic or historical falsehoods. Although erasing the traces of time, this second principle drove the restoration of Borgo Rizza, a case of paradoxical practices. Borgo Rizza, in the Province of Syracuse, is one of the eight 8-buildings-around-a-square villages built in 1940 in Sicily by the Fascist institution: Ente di Colonizzazione del Latifondo Siciliano to colonise and modernise the so called underdeveloped population. In 2002 and 2012, driven by&nbsp;&nbsp;institution responsible for protecting and promoting cultural heritage in the Italian context. Nevertheless, today the plaster crumbles. The paper stems from the crumbling plaster phenomenon and hypothesizes that the failing preservation processes can be traced in how the fascist ideology materialized through a Western epistemology of aesthetics. Despite being identified as a modern architecture, and officially constructed by the north-Italian, groundbreaking expert-in-concrete company Ferrobeton, Borgo Rizza features traditional volcanic load-bearing walls on the ground floor, and tuff masonry on the second floor, hence only a few structures are in reinforced concrete. In relation to a wall section of approximately 60 cm, the fascist modernity is embodied in solely 2 cm of red-colored concrete plaster, which played a pivotal role in strengthening the modernization ideology of the fascist regime against the Sicilian context. And yet, despite being materially irresponsible for technical incompatibility and culturally difficult to sustain for the continuity with the fascist past, upon the guidance and the supervision of the Soprintendenza ai Beni Culturali, two campaigns of restoration have underpinned the performativity of the fascist regime. Ironically, it is behind the crumbling plaster that is possible to appreciate the material complexity of Borgo Rizza: a mix of techniques that evoke many more stories than the fascist narrative and still today perpetuated in the cultural heritage rhetoric. Behind the surface of the plaster lies the intricate entanglement of the colonial past where new imported technology intersects with local materials and building techniques. What if instead of being an issue to be fixed, the crumbling plaster performs, in agential materialistic terms, as the framework for a demodern/decolonial epistemology committed to social justice able to acknowledge the colonial legacies and ultimately pass down narratives otherwise excluded? ︎ MATTER-MATERIALITY For the&nbsp;36th CIHA ( Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art) World Congress the topic is “Matter and Materiality” as they are inherent to the conception, production, interpretation and conservation of artifacts in all cultures across all period. It focuses on issues relating to the world's cultural heritage in the diversity of its creation, study, conservation and promotion. The theme Matter Materiality focuses on the object and its uses over the centuries and across cultural areas. This theme taps into the fundamental origins of art while inviting reflection on the major issues of our time: management of resources, sustainability, the environment, new technologies, digital dematerialisation, and more. Matter and materiality are inherent to the conception, production, interpretation and conservation of artifacts in all cultures across all period. It focuses on issues relating to the world's cultural heritage in the diversity of its creation, study, conservation and promotion. The congress has provided five intense days of scientific exchanges, with several programmes of conferences, round tables, debates and visits to cultural institutions and historic sites in and around Lyon and its Metropole. https://silviasusanna.net/Beyond-the-facade Mon, 27 Jan 2025 19:27:09 +0000 silviasusanna.net https://silviasusanna.net/Beyond-the-facade Beyond the Façade&nbsp;of Fascism: On heritage, Care, and Repair ︎︎︎event 21.05.2024 at IASPIS, Stockholm&nbsp; with Husam Abusalem intro by Magnus Ericsson<img width="4000" height="3000" width_o="4000" height_o="3000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d339bd240947b12f5c78b83700213fd83b438e3b8cff3e8b9bca774ba08f3b96/_DSF4589.jpg" data-mid="225721777" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d339bd240947b12f5c78b83700213fd83b438e3b8cff3e8b9bca774ba08f3b96/_DSF4589.jpg" /> Drawing from the ongoing projects, 2cm: the Thickness of Fascism (Silvia Susanna) and Anti-Atlas of Fascist-Colonial Architecture (Husam Abusalem), together, they delved into the impact of this architectural legacy from broad urban perspectives to the intricate details of construction materials, weaving together floor plans with profanations and wall sections with colonial narratives. The conversation will begin by addressing what fascist colonial architecture represents, then continue to analyse how the authorised heritage discourse normalised the preservation and presence of this peculiar architectural legacy despite its heavy history. It will delve into how modern architectural tools justify this approach through the claim of neutral scientific instruments and then go on to explain the historical, spatial, and social context of this architectural legacy and visit neglected micro-histories that have been replaced by this fascist colonial architecture. The conversation will conclude by drawing parallels between fascist-colonial architecture in Sicily and settler colonialism in Palestine. Beyond the Façade of Fascism: On heritage, care, and repair is a continuation of the series of presentations and conversations around issues of artistic practice and cultural heritage within the IASPIS public programme that was introduced in 2022. ︎IASPIS https://silviasusanna.net/Learning-from-the-stratigraphy Mon, 27 Jan 2025 19:43:04 +0000 silviasusanna.net https://silviasusanna.net/Learning-from-the-stratigraphy Learning from the stratigraphy ︎︎︎walk&amp;talk lecture / 6–10.05.2024, Borgo Rizza, Carlentini (SR), Sicily <img width="5616" height="3744" width_o="5616" height_o="3744" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f5e45b7f0f48848357fd193303ad88c2d3d75e8ba4b9f5039204ac89350055ee/Ente-di-Decolonizzazione_FK-19.JPG" data-mid="225812551" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f5e45b7f0f48848357fd193303ad88c2d3d75e8ba4b9f5039204ac89350055ee/Ente-di-Decolonizzazione_FK-19.JPG" /> <img width="5616" height="3744" width_o="5616" height_o="3744" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2733634f80e5cce3f5d0d58a420ac401e4f50688de51a7dbef1669c94bb686c2/Ente-di-Decolonizzazione_FK-17.JPG" data-mid="225812550" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2733634f80e5cce3f5d0d58a420ac401e4f50688de51a7dbef1669c94bb686c2/Ente-di-Decolonizzazione_FK-17.JPG" />photos by Fabian Konopka For the Annual Gathering at the Entity of Decolonisation, I curated, with the support of Steffie de Gaetano and Alice Pontiggia, a walk-and-talk session exploring the entangled histories and material evidence of Borgo Rizza. The session began by examining the Western art value system’s reliance on concepts such as authenticity, provenance, and artist intentionality in preservation practices and its contradictions.&nbsp; The session demonstrated how frameworks of the Western value system are upheld through socio-political and technical infrastructures that often prioritize the maintenance of dominant cultural paradigms over the material realities of heritage. Through an analysis of the village’s material layers—a 4mm layer of Pompeian red paint, 2cm of concrete plaster, and 56cm of volcanic stone—the session uncovered the contradictions embedded in preservation practices. It highlighted the overlooked labor and ecological implications of materials, critiquing the modern detachment between matter and symbolic value. Furthermore, it demonstrated how the persistent focus on superficial elements, such as plaster, has obscured deeper colonial entanglements and production histories, perpetuating extractive preservation logics. Drawing on feminist neo-materialist perspectives, the session proposes shifting from preservation as accumulation toward practices of care that recognize the agency of materials and local knowledge. This approach envisions preservation as a collective, interconnected process that addresses the socio-political and ecological wounds tied to material and cultural heritage. ︎ENTITY OF DECOLONIZATION THIRD ANNUAL GATHERING <img src="https://www.decolonizing.ps/site/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/poster_english_low-scaled.jpeg" width="799" height="1200" style="width: 277.82px; height: 417.252px;"> https://silviasusanna.net/diffractive-windows-1 Tue, 28 Jan 2025 12:49:52 +0000 silviasusanna.net https://silviasusanna.net/diffractive-windows-1 Diffractive Windows ︎︎︎art project 19.08- 03.10. 2023 presented at Monumental Affair die-DAS academy art director Germane Barnes The project originates from a reflection on the labels 'Zedler-Restaurierung' <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0a0168e1eb360b0daf44d936da0f674f63909d0e03b3f32a14586a878abfa527/heritage-window.jpg" data-mid="225661513" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0a0168e1eb360b0daf44d936da0f674f63909d0e03b3f32a14586a878abfa527/heritage-window.jpg" /> found throughout the Saalecker Workshop—the first project of the Nazi ideologist Paul Schultze-Naumburg and location for several meetings of prominent National Socialists, including Hitler. The 'Zedler-Restaurierung' are 5x5 cm paper labels affixed to every material in each room that serve as a testament to the currently authorized preservation discourse (AHD)1. After being designated as a national monument in 1995, a specific material investigation on the building became mandatory. Therefore, any formal changes interfering with Schultze-Naumburg's last implementation required permission from the State Office for Monument Preservation. What is the relation between the materialization of the racial ideology of Paul Schultze-Naumburg and the current knowledge of cultural heritage? Who is validating a cultural value and according to which criteria? Who earns a place in the chronicles of cultural heritage and for what reasons? Whose narratives are acknowledged, remembered, and endured in the national collective memory while others fade into obscurity? The project materialized after a series of conversations I had with the inhabitants of Saaleck, on-site and online research, and material investigation of the Saalecker Workshop. The project revolves around three different diffractive windows.1st / At the second room on the left side of the second floor. A series of projected pictures of the Saalecker Workshop portraying every day life moments of people inhabiting the place during the GDR period when the building was reused and re-activated as an elderly center. The slide-show is in front the 'Zedler-Restaurierung' label of the entrance. 2nd / On the left side of the second floor, in the first room, I have identified an accumulation of visible time-space mattering achieved through the&nbsp; stratification of various materials over the years. Using black tape, I have outlined a frame and within it, affixed a series of letters. Each letter corresponds to a legend, strategically positioned to compel the observer to enter in the taped area for reading. Each letter in the legend is associated with a specific year, a material description and a crucial event that occurred in that year. The legend proposes a time-material-mattering.3rd / On capital of the stairs’ column, where there is only a tape frame with no legend. At this point, the observer has no hints. These three frames define what I name diffractive windows (the projected photos, the big taped area with a legend, and taped capital)2 The project aims to go off the established preservation protocols and open up possible time-material-mattering frameworks that crossover facts, events, and materials for collectively delving into the process of validating the value, the relationship between the evaluator and the value, and the possible positions that everyone could take while defining which materials matter and in relation to which narrative. The diffractive windows are not meant to be an alternative to established preservation approaches but rather a frame to stress the relationship between the object assumed to be preserved and the subject analyzing. The aim was to underline the inseparability of the material and discursive dimensions of reality, as well as the material-discursive nature of boundary-drawing practices and the responsibilities within these power dynamics. Ultimately, the project performed as an invitation to contemplate the epistemological foundations that underpin the narrative surrounding national memories. <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d8aa6adad0e243d0e38bb8604bedd437f7dc48e5c0454be865dee07767f3273e/IMG_8501.jpg" data-mid="225662289" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d8aa6adad0e243d0e38bb8604bedd437f7dc48e5c0454be865dee07767f3273e/IMG_8501.jpg" /> <img width="1890" height="1260" width_o="1890" height_o="1260" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1b3d78e85ee14a36b5349280d28dc2d066e5f61ee6d995f22ecdd6b5e9fce372/L1370653.jpg" data-mid="225662286" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1b3d78e85ee14a36b5349280d28dc2d066e5f61ee6d995f22ecdd6b5e9fce372/L1370653.jpg" /><img width="1890" height="2835" width_o="1890" height_o="2835" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e23f05df0f46ec031152e0c092ca254e0191cb1494bef3017cba638bc81cb242/L1370652.jpg" data-mid="225662295" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e23f05df0f46ec031152e0c092ca254e0191cb1494bef3017cba638bc81cb242/L1370652.jpg" /><img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2797787da7596efb82676a936753ec217c43b21a390ccd50147582eeb491b963/IMG_8550.jpg" data-mid="225662296" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2797787da7596efb82676a936753ec217c43b21a390ccd50147582eeb491b963/IMG_8550.jpg" /> (1) Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (London: Routledge, 2006) (2) "my method is to engage aspects of each in dynamic relationality to the other, being attentive to the iterative production of boundaries, the material-discursive nature of boundary-drawing practices, the constitutive exclusions that are enacted, and questions of accountability and responsibility for the reconfgurings of which we are a part."Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007). p. 93. &nbsp; ︎ MONUMENTAL AFFAIR &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;die-DAS academy https://silviasusanna.net/2cm-the-thickness-of-Fascism Tue, 28 Jan 2025 13:14:34 +0000 silviasusanna.net https://silviasusanna.net/2cm-the-thickness-of-Fascism 2cm the thickness of Fascism ︎︎︎discursive exhibition 03-10.09. 2022 at The Entity of Decolonisation, Borgo Rizza (SR) Sicily <img width="1200" height="800" width_o="1200" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b1ff53720fb2c20991b7feb5237a87c1e66df72d04cfaa8a066d73df848f351f/DHSS2022_2659.jpg" data-mid="225668726" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b1ff53720fb2c20991b7feb5237a87c1e66df72d04cfaa8a066d73df848f351f/DHSS2022_2659.jpg" /> In the introduction to Uses of Heritage, Laurajane Smith argues that the authentic essence of heritage—the pivotal juncture when our emotions and personal identity become genuinely involved—resides not solely in the acquisition of material possessions, but rather in the process of transmitting and receiving both memories and knowledge. Additionally, this essence is made manifest in how we subsequently employ, transform, and reconstruct these memories and knowledge, aiding us in comprehending and interpreting not only our present state of being, but also our aspirations for the future. In the same book, Smith introduces the concept of ‘Authorized Heritage Discourse’ (AHD) to refer to a dominant set of ideas, values and practices that shape and regulate how heritage is defined, understood, and managed within society. According to Smith, AHD represents a particular way of constructing and presenting heritage that is influenced by institutions, experts, and governing bodies. It establishes a hierarchy of significance, determining what is considered valuable and worthy of preservation, while marginalizing or excluding other forms of heritage that do not align with the authorized narratives. In the case of Borgo Rizza, the Authorized Heritage Discourse advocated by the preservation regime of the Soprintendenza dei Beni Culturali—the Italian governmental institution responsible for the protection, preservation, and promotion of cultural heritage—seems more interested in restoring a sense of “the original” by mandating that each intervention on the buildings should include the restoration of the original color, building knowledge, and plasters. However, if the primary purpose of the borghi during fascism was drawing an ideal image of a city in which the power of the fascist regime is depicted why should we seek to restore this idea in the present day? Although Borgo Rizza is categorized as rational modern architecture, it incorporates different techniques: experiments with slabs in brick and reinforced concrete; a volcanic masonry constructed with stones dating back to the Pleistocene era using secular Sicilian techniques on the lower floors; and a tough lighter masonry on the upper floors. Behind the surface of uniform plaster lies the intricate entanglement of the colonial past where new imported technology intersects with local materials and building techniques. <img width="1200" height="800" width_o="1200" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4985ae16f615fa6f34552b232269393f86d2ff7159136aa47df76ee4da54d882/DHSS2022_2992.jpg" data-mid="225668731" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4985ae16f615fa6f34552b232269393f86d2ff7159136aa47df76ee4da54d882/DHSS2022_2992.jpg" /><img width="1200" height="800" width_o="1200" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/856548478df76ecab3a7195eb83854abf3a0803cb6879498c606cf1703a11cae/DHSS2022_2782.jpg" data-mid="225668729" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/856548478df76ecab3a7195eb83854abf3a0803cb6879498c606cf1703a11cae/DHSS2022_2782.jpg" /> &nbsp; ︎ ENTITY OF DECOLONISATION <img src="https://www.decolonizing.ps/site/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/DHSS_22_poster_WA-scaled.jpg" width="675" height="1200" style="width: 347.273px; height: 617.374px;"> The second edition of the Difficult Heritage Summer School seeks to redefine the contours of colonial architectural heritage and the narratives surrounding it. The School raises critical questions about access, re-use, and entitlement to this painful and violent heritage. The program aims to strike the right balance between pre-structured activities and unplanned, spontaneous ones to encourage ownership and proactiveness among all participants, including students, guests, and local citizens. Field trips set the pace for the group as they explore the surroundings and engage with local architectural, industrial, and landscape heritage. Mornings are dedicated to self-organized group activities focused on three main topics:1. Space &amp; Environment Beyond its modernist and fascist architecture and design, Borgo Rizza embodies and connects conflicting meanings, “othered” spaces, and environments, existing through a series of territorial ramifications. By shifting our attention from buildings to bodies, minds, nature, and territories, these activities aim to challenge traditional approaches to heritage preservation and architectural knowledge. <img width="1600" height="1067" src="https://www.decolonizing.ps/site/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/DHSS2022_2807-scaled.jpg" style="width: 347.273px; height: 231.588px;"> <img width="948" height="1600" src="https://www.decolonizing.ps/site/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/DHSS_2022_poster-people-scaled.jpg" style="width: 347.273px; height: 586.115px;">