Rue d’Alger intends to reinterpret urban elements of Marseille that relate to colonial histories from the basis of intersections between artistic perspectives and academic research. The project takes over the Italian Cultural Institute (former Casa d’Italia), a representative example of fascist architecture in France, by opening the doors of a ‘dissonant’ place and revealing its archives. Although Rue d’Alger questions the propaganda in support of Mussolini’s expansionist dream, its discourse does not focus solely on Italy. The Italian Cultural Institute’s location at the heart of Rue d’Alger, naturally lends itself to a broadening of the subject to include the legacy of the asymmetric relations that France has constructed with North Africa. The Rue d’Alger exhibition proposes a polyphonic and plural platform for this, in which artists and researchers address, by way of various activities (performances, round tables, seminars, etc.), the ‘ghosts’ of the colonial past, while returning to the question of how to construct a shared, circulatory space that could characterise today’s Mediterranean.
A proposition by TELEMMe in collaboration with the Italian cultural institute.
Curated by Alessandro Gallicchio with Simone Frangi, Marine Schütz and Pierre Sintès.
Partners : AMU, MMSH, CNRS, Institut SoMuM, Banque Monte dei Paschi di Siena and ECHOES
