“Colonial Objects: The Material Culture of Italian Colonialism” is an international, interdisciplinary conference that addresses the production and circulation of objects to understand their active role in shaping colonial imaginaries, visual culture, and imperial ideologies, both in Italy and abroad.
Focusing on the dialectical relationship between the facture of objects and the meanings they produce, the conference seeks to interrogate colonial artefacts and, through them, to test theories of material culture. Scholars will present analyses centred on specific artistic, artisanal, or industrial objects, with the aim of reframing the history of Italian colonialism through material culture, and elucidating how it shaped ideas, representations, and memories.
The conference is organized as part of the research unit Decolonizing Italian Visual and Material Culture of the Department Weddigen at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, in collaboration with the Contemporary History section of the German Historical Institute in Rome.
A joint event will take place on March 26th 2026 at the Italian Academy, Columbia University, New York with the generous support of the Ragusa Foundation for the Humanities.
For additional information, visit: https://www.biblhertz.it/events/43901/2631954
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