On 27 February 2016 the Italian Cultural Centre Wales (ICCW), in partnership with Transnationalizing Modern Languages and Watch Africa, held a one-day event in Cardiff on the history of Italian colonialism in the Horn of Africa and transnational mobilities from this region to/from Italy. The event, aptly called Voices and Faces of a Post-Colonial Heritage, was organised around the screening of the new Italian docufilm Asmarina (Alan Maglio e Medhin Paolos, 2015) with the support of AISCLI, l’Università degli Studi di Milano, il Centro di Studi Postcoloniali e di Genere at the University Orientale in Naples, Docucity and Dizioni Diasporiche. As Caterina Bertelli and Luca Paci from ICCW explained, this event is part of a larger project called ‘Mediterranean Re-mapped’ started during the Italian Film Festival, Cardiff with the screening of Io sto con la sposa (Del Grande, Augugliaro, Al Nassiry 2014) and born from the urge to show a different image of the Mediterranean from that available in the media today. The project also aims somehow to shrug the veil of collective blindness that permits a tacit acquiescence to the thousands who drown while crossing the Mediterranean. Understanding the reasons behind our callous blindness involves exploring both our identity as Italians, a product of many different cultures mostly originating from across the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and our personal and national (hi)stories and heritage in an effort to redress the ongoing silence and cultural amnesia revolving around Italian colonial history. Continue reading →