The Museo delle Civiltà is launching an open call for a residency and the production of a project on the topic “Care in a World We Share with Others/Caring in a Precarious World”.

Museums of Ethnography and World Cultures are holding a great number of collections originating from societies whose members today are involved in social, political or ecological struggles. How can they be activated to address the twinned concerns of planetary precarity and the precarity of plural societies? In what ways can they shape more democratic and equitable futures mobilising their collections and (difficult) histories? And how might they help in challenge rising exclu-sionary politics based in anxiety around others?
Within this context, the Museo delle Civiltà is committed to exploring the connections between its ethnographic collections and questions regarding the climate crisis, the Anthropocene and issues related to the afterlives of colonialism.

The call is addressed to activists, artists, researchers, or cultural actors and creatives similarly en-gaged in contemporary efforts and interested in museum collections as sources of inspiration.

The research of the residency will be based on the “Mostra campionaria” (Trade Fair) section of the former Colonial Museum of Rome, opened in 1923 and closed in the 70s of the 19th century, and currently in storage at the Museo delle Civiltà.
The collections of the Colonial Museum of Rome – a museum of colonial propaganda, whose main narrative was the exaltation of the Italian enterprises in Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia – are characterized by a strong heterogeneity of objects and sections: ethnographic, artistic, archaeological, colonial history, trade, and commodities compose a contested and difficult heritage.

within the residency “Care in a World We Share with Others/Caring in a Precarious World” it will be important to investigate the contradictions concerning the term curate, as well as preservation (of art, heritage, memories, environment). The verb “to curate” (from Latin cura, “take care”) can express ambivalent meanings, especially if it is framed within the context of the former Colonial Museum of Rome, which require the adoption of post-colonial and decolonial approaches and perspectives.

The creative result should be site- and context-specific: conceived and produced in the framework of the dialogue between museum curators, the collections, and the resident’s inspiration, poetics, and politics.
The output will be presented in the temporary experimental exhibition which will open as part of the TAKING CARE Project in January 2023. It could also be exhibited in the Museo delle Civiltà and/or future events.
The Museo delle Civiltà will cover all the production costs of the project whose output will be acquired by the Museum as part of its collections.
Presentation of the work in the form of a talk, conversation, or performance is expected (see also “Additional opportunities and expectations”).

Further information: takingcareproject.eu