Decolonizing the Museum: A Workshop
Feb 12 2025 / 18:00 / VILLA LA PIETRA
How can the arts and humanities address their legacy of colonialism and center equity and representation? Since their creation in the... Learn More >
Decolonizing the Museum is an ongoing project dedicated to reevaluating how Villa La Pietra engages with, displays, and interprets objects that represent figures of ornamental Blackness and diasporic imagery. Organized by collection manager Francesca Baldry and building upon the ReSignifications project, this initiative incorporates the research of art historian Lara Abu Dahab, whose master’s thesis examines the collection’s “Blackamoor” sculptures. As part of this effort, a recent workshop invited students to critically engage with these works, a dialogue that will continue through further provenance research, student-led assignments, and interactive study. The project will also expand through a virtual interactive mapping of selected rooms in the Villa, featuring narrated content that contextualizes the complex histories of these objects.