Location: S.S209 ARIA attic, Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp
Time: 14h30-17h, unless communicated otherwise
Target audience: junior academic and artistic researchers
In this seminar, visual artist Ilaria Lupo will share her work on creating a counter-archive and an archive of the common from a video archive that records the environmental struggles in Taranto, Italy. The video archive shows the history of a city that suffered from the ecocide perpetrated by ILVA, Europe’s biggest steel mill. Lupo will discuss how to transform the archive into a common good and how to approach environmental justice from a political ecology standpoint. A counter-archive is an alternative way of preserving and presenting memory that challenges the dominant narratives and power structures.
Preparatory reading:
- Archives of the Commons: overview (2015)
“The Archives of the Commons seminar, Madrid 2015 by Mela Dávila and Carlos Prieto del Campo (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía), Marisa Pérez Colina (Fundación de los Comunes) and Mabel Tapia (Red Conceptualismos del Sur)” - Archives of the Common II: report of the “The Anomic Archives” symposium (2015)
- Archives of the Commons III: Non-appropriable Archives?: overview and concise content (2019) - review the livestream here
Theoretical basis - Counter-archiving in the framework of Political Ecology
- Armiero, Marco. "Narratives for Inhabiting Environmental Disaster." What Can We Trust? Ex-Situ, Compatible with life: Plants for a world waiting to germinate, edited by Lucrezia Cipitelli, Davida Maria Benfield, and Christopher Bratton (CAD + SR), Kunstverein Publishing, Milano, 2023.
Optionally, more information can be found in the publication Decolonizing Archives (pdf) by L'internationale Online, Archives of the Commons II: The Anomic Archive and Armiero, Marco. Wasteocene, Stories from the Global Dump. Cambridge University Press, 2021.
About Ilaria Lupo
Ilaria Lupo is a visual artist and PhD researcher at the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts. Born in Italy, she was based in the Levantine (Palestine/Lebanon) from 2006 to 2018. She developed a public space practice through participative projects, with research focused on issues of political ecology and environmental justice. Her projects have been supported by several organizations in the Middle East and in Europe, such as Ashkal Alwan, The Beirut Art Center, The Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, 98 weeks, APEAL, T.A.P. Temporary Art Platform, Al Riwaq Art Space, Heinrich Boell Foundation, Institut Français Du Liban, Zoukak Theatre, Al-Mahatta Gallery, The Middelheim Museum, AIR Antwerpen, FARE/Open Care, Archiviazioni, and ZK/U Zentrum fur Kunst un Urbanistik Berlin.