AAR is pleased to share a personnel update from Rome. Valentina Follo has joined AAR’s staff on a permanent, part-time basis, as Curator of the Norton-Van Buren Archaeological Study Collection and Program Manager of the Classical Summer School, and Johanne Affricot has joined AAR as Curator-at-Large.
Valentina Follo graduated summa cum laude in classical archaeology at the La Sapienza University in Rome and studied at the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany before pursuing her Master’s in pedagogy of antiquity from the University of Ferrara. She then obtained her PhD in Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Follo has been the recipient of several research grants and fellowships, including those of the Getty Foundation and the Bavarian State’s Ministry of Education and Culture.
Her publications have focused on early modern, Fascist, as well as contemporary appropriation of ancient practices, particularly the reuse, adaptation, and emulation of Greco-Roman institutional, artistic and architectural models. Her research interests also encompass the renascent legislative efforts to protect the cultural patrimony of post-unification Italy with special emphasis on the antiquities market between the U.S. and Italy.
At AAR, she will continue to be heavily involved in our archaeological archives and materials, and she will also develop exeternal programs and collaborations as part of AAR’s outreach mission, organizing seminars for local schools, universities, and the Classical Summer School. Her part-time position will allow AAR to expand visiting hours to the Norton-Van Buren Archaeological Study Collection.
Johanne Affricot is an independent curator and cultural producer. She is particularly invested in creating creative spaces as re-generative devices to collectively cultivate and disseminate strategies and practices of radical imagination that have a strong cultural and social impact. She is artistic director of SPAZIO GRIOT and GriotMag. Her recent projects include the solo exhibition Il Mio Filippino: For Those Who Care To See (Mattatoio, Rome, 2023); the group show and public programme Sediments. After Memory (Mattatoio, Rome, 2022); the discursive program Chef Binta. Reframing Traditions (Museo delle Civiltà, Rome, 2022). An independent researcher, Affricot holds an MA in “Innovation and Development” from La Sapienza. In 2022 she coedited the poetry collection Rage & Desire (Spazio Griot, British Council) and the publication Exercises for the Imagination of a Space (Spazio Griot, Palazzo delle Esposizioni).
At AAR, Ms. Affricot will work with Andrew Heiskell Arts Director Ilaria Puri Purini in planning public exhibitions and other arts programming.