What came to mind while reading the description of the Decolonizing Architecture Art Research (DAAR) project held at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome and the Difficult Heritage Summer School held in Borgo Rizza was, what forms of fascist-type oppression are still present around the globe or presenting themselves recently? And the will to add slavery in the US to the list of oppressive legacies in which we still feel the consequences such as global forms of colonialism abroad and fascism were also thoughts quite prescient, especially to orient my own thinking towards the proper mindset needed to objectively concentrate on this subject matter in a critical framework today. This is not to generalize, universalize, or essentialize. Additionally, the North/South divide is present not only globally, but in the U.S. as well. This is also a country-specific problem. In the US this divide that complicates the usual projection of colonized to colonizer is very much materialised racially. Beyond the global paradigm, I think there may be more of these divides within other countries as well. And for example, this may be true in Italy.
The Ente di Decolonizzazione or Entity of Decolonization was envisioned and deployed by Distretti and Petti as a place for certain stories to be reborn and reaffirmed. “The installation builds on a photographic dossier of documentation produced by Luca Capuano, which reactivates a network of built heritage that is at risk of decay, abandonment and being forgotten.” What is most impressive about the installation is that it is beyond space. It doesn’t analyze or present space at all. It detaches from this mentality or reality as this former way of thinking is still in line with the colonial mindset to control territory and so obscures the audience’s perspective into, or onto, the images in this way. By detaching from space and focusing on the social formations within that also serve as legacies of the imperialist rule, provides a new framework for working, perhaps internalizing. The installation that aims at reforming social constructions is a radical way to move beyond the heritage and limitations of both material and social orders created by hegemonic and dictatorial regimes. “With the will to find new perspectives from which to consider and deconstruct the legacies of colonialism and fascism, the installation thinks beyond the perimeters of the fascist-built settlements to the different forms of segregations and division they represent.”
I would even go as far in saying that reusing the space or writing new stories in/on spaces created by fascist regimes, or “writing the stories of the future of the built” could be at times even a lost intervention. To focus on the actual architectures and buildings is only a first step. Once spaces of colonial heritage are identified, then we may be able to work within them to reform real social structures that were influenced by former architectures. But we are not thinking about the actual building structures anymore. They become a point of departure. We may not need the buildings at all. In this way, it doesn’t matter where the actual space is, or what it used to be used for. What matters is how and what is created within a social reordering. Beyond the borders of any physical wall, or the planned and built bureaucratic structures of any city government, the reconfiguring of space happens by members of the public and has the potential to create meaning beyond what may already seem to be prescribed.
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