European Commission - 7th Framework Programme European Museums and Libraries in/of the age of migrations last updated: February 2015


The Memory of the Sea

3-7 July 2013

Bergamo, Italy | GAMeC - Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo
MeLa | Research Field 05 Exhibition curated by Anna Chiara Cimoli


The travelling exhibition "The Memory of the Sea. Objects Migrating within the Mediterranean", inaugurated at Museo Preistorico Etnografico Luigi Pigorini in Rome on December 2012, and displayed at the Galata Museo del Mare in Genoa on February 2013, has now landed at GAMeC - Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, where it will be exhibited from 3 to 7 July 2013.

The initiativecurated by Anna Chiara Cimoli and promoted within the MeLa Research Field 05, is meant to present a private museum located in Zarzis, in South Tunisia, a place where many sea currents meet; this experience ensued from the work of Mohsen Lihidheb, who has been collecting, amassing, organizing objects for many years, claiming his right to take care of them, to create artworks with them, and to transform them on and on through time, proposing an innovative form of resistance to oblivion and an expression of compassion towards the migrants who leave their things behind and towards these objects themselves. The story of the museum is told through the pictures by Alessandro Brasile and Mattia Insolera.

In this step, the exhibition is also supported by the EU funded Research Project EUBORDERSCAPE. Bordering, Political Landscapes and Social Arenas: Potentials and Challenges of Evolving Border Concepts in a post-Cold War World, and it is organised in conjunction with the European Border Studies Conference ‘Mapping Conceptual Change in Thinking European Borders’ (3-5 luglio 2013, Sede Universitaria di S. Agostino e Pignolo), promoted by Centro di Ricerca sulla Complessità (Ce.R.Co.) and Università degli Studi di Bergamo in cooperation with the University of Eastern Finland.

The exhibition will be inaugurated at GAMeC on July 3rd, at h. 18:30. Furthermore, it will be conplemented by a MeLa Workshop, that will be held on July 6th, h. 15:00, aimed at exploring "Migrating Objects. Dialogues on the memory of the journey".