In celebration of the second edition of Black History Month at the American Academy in Rome, the Academy presents There’s Always More, a public program featuring screenings, conversations, lectures, and performances, organized by AAR Curator-at-Large, Johanne Affricot.
The 2025 thematic framework centers around the idea of abundance. Abundance takes various forms, each offering different readings. For some, it may represent or symbolize the pursuit of wealth–whether material, intellectual or spiritual. Others may view it as a threat to one’s life or status, whether real or imagined. For still others, it may serve as a catalyst for embracing hope and new possibilities. However, a common thread invites reflection on the complex relationship between the Black body and history. What does abundance look like in relation to history today? What are the implications of applying this notion to Black history? How do we define and measure it in connection with multidimensional identities and geographies?
Taking forward the conversation between historian and professor Olivette Otele and director Daphne Di Cinto on African European heritage held in 2024, There’s Always More begins with a screening and discussion of The Black Italian Renaissance: African Presence in Art on February 13th. Written by Francesca Priori and directed by Cristian Di Mattia, the Sky Original documentary uncovers the African presence in European society through the paintings of renowned Renaissance artists and archival documents dissected by an international team of art historians, scholars, and artists. The film highlights the identities and roles of African figures in Italy, while also examining the evolution of racial concepts from the 15th to the 18th centuries.
The program continues on February 19th with the video presentation of The Ritual of Breath is The Rite to Resist, a chamber opera created by AAR 2017 Rome Prize Fellows, Jonathan Berger and Enrico Riley, alongside librettist Vievee Francis. The work responds to the murder of Eric Garner and the ongoing loss of Black lives at the hands of authorities. It explores global impacts of racial injustice and celebrates resistance, healing, joy and Black life. Following the screening, the authors will engage in a discussion with Italian scholars and artists. The following day, February 20, the public is invited back to the Academy to participate in an activation and ritual related to The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist. There will be a screening of Her Fight, His Name: The Story of Gwen Carr and Eric Garner (2024), a documentary that chronicles Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner, whose 2014 death at the hands of the NYPD sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. The event will foster an exchange between the U.S. and Italy on examining systemic injustice, followed by a ritual activation.
Dr. Raul Moaquech Ferrera-Balanquet concludes this year’s Black History Month program with a talk on Decolonizing Curatorial Practices at Howard University Gallery of Art on March 18th followed by the multimedia project Mariposa Ancestral Memory on March 20th. Centered on Africana Kairibe Malungaje: Futurist Reversed Memories, a curatorial research and exhibition development project, the lecture reclaims the East as a sacred space for Indigenous and African Caribbean peoples. It explores how to approach the white cube from a decolonized perspective and examines the connections between West African collections to contemporary artistic practices in diaspora territories across the Americas, the Greater Caribbean, and Europe. The closing act of the program features the Italian premiere of Mariposa Ancestral Memory (2023-2025), an interdisciplinary project which blends a multimedia installation with a ceremonial performance. This work investigates African Caribbean writing, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the Mariel Exodus, US Latinx migration and Afro-Caribbean spirituality, all interwoven with the artist’s experience as a Cuban-born, transnational subject. The project also addresses undocumented migration, connecting the Black Atlantic Slave Trade, the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, Kongo cosmograms in Cuban Palo Kongo, and their ties to Haitian Vévé and and West African cultures.