On Saturday 20 October from 9.00 am onwards, Wu Ming 2 presents the performance complementary to the work Viva Menilicchi! (2018), commissioned by Manifesta 12 for The Planetary Garden and realised in collaboration with the Palermo-based collective Fare Ala.
Wu Ming 2, one of the members of the collective of writers and activists Wu Ming, will lead a walk through the city, during which various voices will combine to recount forgotten stories of slavery and colonialism. In fact, many places in the city of Palermo are linked to the period of Italian colonialism (1869 – 1945) and its legacy. The performance will unfold as a walk to all these places in Palermo linked to the Italian colonialist past, and will coalesce into possible actions and thoughts of resistance.
On Friday 19 October from 8.00 pm at Teatro Garibaldi di Palermo, there will be an evening of screening and talks with director Alessandra Ferrini and researchers Francesca Di Pasquale and Chiara Giubilaro, ‘Negotiating Amnesia. Pasts and presents of Italian coloniality’, to explore strategies of memory, and negation, of a chapter in Italian history still spreading its effects on contemporaneity.
Furthermore, Sunday, October 21, from 5.00 pm to 7.00 pm, at Teatro Garibaldi di Palermo, Wu Ming 2 will present images and documents related to the walk of the day before, thus giving life to a debate with the public on the ideas and topics of Viva Menilicchi!
Programme and itinerary of the urban walk:
The complete itinerary of the walk covers 16 km distance (available here: map.org), split into two sessions, morning (9 km, route blue in the map) and afternoon (7 km, red route), with a lunch break of about one hour.
The meeting point for both sessions is Teatro Garibaldi di Palermo (Via Teatro Garibaldi, 46-56): in the morning the group will meet at 8.30 am and will start walking at 9.00 am; in the afternoon the group will meet at 2.30 pm and will start walking at 3.00 pm.
The walk will end at 8.30 pm at Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri, where Wu Ming 2 will read the essay We Refugees by Hannah Arendt. Following, at Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri there will be the concert Fratres / Jesus’ Blood (Jerusa Barros voice + GliArchiEnsemble). Both the reading and the concert are organised by the Festival delle Letterature Migranti.
We advise participants to bring water, picnic lunch, and a raincoat.
The walk is free and open to everyone.
A StoryMap of the walk with texts and images of some of the stops is available here.
For those who wish to join the performance along the path, below an approximate schedule with some of the stops, indicated also on the map: map.org:
Time 10.00 am, Oratorio Santa Chiara (Stop 3)
Time 11.15 am, Intersection Cortile Barcellona / Via Juvara (Stop 6)
Time 12.15 pm, Ex-Ospedale Psichiatrico – Entrance Via Pindemonte (Stop 9)
Time 1.15 pm, Via E. Basile 22 (Stop 10)
Time 4.30 pm, Piazza V. Bottego (Stop 18)
Time 5.45 pm, Fountain in via Generale. V. Magliocco (Stop 22)
Time 7.15 pm, La Cala / Lungomare delle Migrazioni, in front of S.Maria della Catena (Stop 26)
Full list of the stops:
MORNING
Teatro Garibaldi di Palermo
Via Pola
Piazza Santi Quaranta
Piazza Casa Professa
Oratorio Santa Chiara
Teatro Montevergini
Tribunale / Nuova Pretura
Cortile Barcellona / Via Juvara
Via Orazio Antinori
Via Re Tancredi / Via Imperatrice Costanza
Ex – Ospedale Psichiatrico – Ingresso Pindemonte
Via Ernesto Basile 22 – Nureddine Adnane
Via Fiume / Via Maqueda – Yussupha Susso
Teatro Garibaldi
AFTERNOON
Teatro Garibaldi di Palermo
Facoltà di Giurisprudenza
Palazzo Pretorio
Piazza Bologni
Quattro canti
Galleria delle Vittorie
Piazza Bottego
Piazzetta Due Palme
Casa del Mutilato
Via Tripoli / Via Rodi
Via Gen. V. Magliocco
Piazza Castelnuovo
Genio del Porto
Piazza XIII Vittime
Lungomare delle Migrazioni / La Cala
Palchetto della Musica / Foro Italico
Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri