All Images © 2012
Justin Randolph Thompson

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From the Campidoglio to the Zoo is a film and sound work that examines the bridging of coloniality into a postwar Italy drawing upon the Ponte Flaminio, a bridge projected to celebrate fascist aspirations and to provide a ceremonious entry to the city, constructed based on the original proposal of Armando Brasini after WWII. The work borrows its title from an unpublished essay by author William Demby, written as a critique of the 1959 Second Congress of Black Artists and Writers which he attended. The congress, dedicated to the development of vision and solidarity amongst Afro-diasporic cultural producers existed in contrast to its hosting by the Istituto Italiano per l’Africa. The film is activated through a live sound performance by Dudu Kouate drawing upon the essence of negritude advanced in relation to the congress and the fragmentary nature of global Black unity. The sound was performed using a range of instruments that are part of the ethnographic collection of the Pigorini Museum in Rome housed by the Museo delle Civiltà. This was the first time that these instruments have been played since their placement in the collection in some cases over one hundred years ago. The work was supported by the British School at Rome and the Museo delle Civiltà.