Home > Catalogue > The Future Contemporary > Building Common Ground > Wasting Trajectories and Generative Ecologies: Leone Contini’s Foreign Farmers
cover
cover

Wasting Trajectories and Generative Ecologies: Leone Contini’s Foreign Farmers

Tommaso Gonzo    Goldsmiths, University of London, UK    

Giovanni Lorenzi    Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia    

VIEW PDF DOWNLOAD PDF

abstract

In this essay, we analyse Leone Contini’s work Foreign Farmers which was created for Manifesta 12 and installed in the Botanical Garden of Palermo, Italy. It consisted of a vegetable garden comprising different plant species not native to Italy, whose seeds were gifted to the artist by migrant gardeners based in different parts of Italy. Contini’s work addresses the disconnection between human communities and the land as a result of displacement. In this text, we analyse Contini’s piece through the lenses of decolonial ecology and the notion of Wasteocene. We consider this installation as a framework to propose a reflection on how unexpected generative ecologies sparked by adaptation are the result of migration in the midst of anthropogenic global warming. By subverting the extractive logic of colonialism, the work questions dominant narratives and power structures that shape society. Furthermore, by extending Sharpe’s metaphor to contemporary migrations in the Mediterranean and the shipment of toxic waste in former colonies, we want to propose an observation of how migrants are subject to ‘the wake’ of colonial violence. The routes once travelled by colonial vessels directed towards the shores of Africa are now the itineraries of the ‘barconi’ floating adrift in the sea, trying to reach the coasts of Southern Europe.

Published
Dec. 14, 2023
Accepted
Oct. 13, 2023
Submitted
July 11, 2023
Language
EN
ISBN (EBOOK)
978-88-6969-756-2

Keywords: Mediterranean SeaEcologyContemporary artColonialismMigration

Copyright: © 2023 Tommaso Gonzo, Giovanni Lorenzi. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.