What is “Day of Remembrance“? January 27, 1945 marked the demolition of the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Thus, as stated in Article 1 of the Law of July 20th 2000, n. 211, “The Italian Republic recognizes the 27th day of January, date of the gates of Auschwitz,” Day of Remembrance “in order to remember the Holocaust (extermination of the Jewish people), the racial laws, the persecution of Italian Jewish citizens , Italians who suffered deportation, imprisonment, death, and those who, even in different fields and camps, have opposed the project of extermination, and risked their lives to save more lives as well as protected the persecuted. “
On the occasion of the “Day of Remembrance 2019”, the Italian Cultural Institute is organizing a conference “Memory games, false news and artistic practices in Italy and in contemporary Europe” by Alessio Mazzaro.
Tuesday January 29,2019, 6pm
Istituto Italiano di Cultura
1200, Dr. Penfield
The conference will be held in Italian
The speaker will question the practices of memory and the education of anti-fascism and anti-racism in contemporary Italy. Relying on two findings, that, soon there will be no more Holocaust survivors and the idea, developed in particular by Kristin Ross, that subjectivity is an essential element to face history. Alessio Mazzaro, will analyze the failure of monuments created to remember the Holocaust and through the theories of Pierre Nora and contemporary theoreticians, the difference between history and memory, the absence of spontaneous memory in these years and its replacement by history through the creation of celebrations and archives. The second part of the conference will focus on memory education as a means of countering the new fascisms, presenting some recent Italian experiences of detecting counterfeit historical online (tampering wikipedia, photographic forgeries, fake news for false mythologies) and a certain “normalization” of fascism through the television talk show. Moving, after, from the fear in Europe of the migrant, Alessio Mazzaro will present how in recent years artists and cultural projects have decided to act on the present through the creation of a counter narrative of migration. Finally, the first and then the European experience of Edinost will be presented, an editorial project edited by Alessio Mazzaro himself.
Alessio Mazzaro is a visual Artist, director and histories researcher. He keeps moving and traveling towards social fabrics, tales and communities that he does not belong to, initiating processes of dialogue towards learning and acceptance. His practice is interdisciplinary as is his education and learning experiences. He graduated in Environmental Engineering (Bsc and Msc), studied Fine art and Theatre at IUAV University (BA), and performance in different workshops at important institutions as Biennale College Teatro (Venezia). Initially pursuing an international career as a performer working for BarokTheGreat and other companies. Afterwards, he deepened his practice in the public realm and audience engagement, being part of the project Art of the Mooc: Merging Public Art and Experimental Education by Pedro Lash and Nato Thompson (Duke University and CreativeTime). At this point he dedicated time to his practice and moved to Bristol, to experience the social practices wave in UK. Recently he relocated to Brussels interested in the Belgian performing arts scene. Interested in understanding how and what we can create together, he co-founded different collectives, S’odinonsuonare – Sound art and performance, the video broadcast project Couchscore, and Collettivo AAA – a collective investigating participatory and collaborative practices in public space. In recent years he was an assistant of Flaka Haliti at 56th Biennale d’Arte di Venezia and of Petrit Halilaj at the 55th (Kosovo Pavilion 2015, 2013), and a Learning activities Assistant at Arnolfini (Centre for Contemporary Art in Bristol, UK). Bringing forward his investigation on testimony and participation, his “experiences” have become day-long performances and transient projects, evolving and improving with participants feedback during the time. In the recents years, he focused on questioning the conditions of becoming a collective, challenging ideologies and perceptions, and empowering audience agency.
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