In 2012, French artist JR joined the national campaign L’Italia sono anch’io [I, too, am Italy]—promoted by Rete G2, Arci, and other social and labor organizations—advocating for the citizenship rights of people with migration backgrounds and their children. Through the Inside Out participatory public art project, JR installed more than 1,500 large-format photographic portraits on buildings and in public spaces across nine Italian cities. Since then, no other major cultural interventions have addressed this theme. Although contemporary art and culture are often seen as spaces of critique, disruption, and imagination, their engagement in the public discourse around Citizenship Reform has remained largely absent. What responsibilities do cultural workers hold? Can we truly understand art as a site of struggle, solidarity, and real transformation? As the national vote on the abrogative referendums quickly approaches (scheduled for June 8–9, 2025 in Italy), SPAZIO GRIOT, along with Lateral Roma and Italiani Senza Cittadinanza (Italians Without Citizenship), invite activists, artists, curators, cultural workers, and citizens to a collective gathering for reflection and dialogue. [FUORI]CAMPO will provide an opportunity to debate one of the referendum’s central questions—the Italian Citizenship Reform—which proposes reducing the residency requirement from 10 to 5 years for foreign nationals seeking citizenship, while also focusing on the role of art and culture in generating political space and public awareness around the issue.
TIMTETABLE:
6 PM – Screening: Motherland > Christian Offman / Barocco (2022, 4 min 23 sec, orginal version subtitled in English)
6:05 PM– From Inside Out/L'Italia Sono Anche Io to the June 8-9 Referendum on Citizenship
Johanne Affricot in conversation with Sielke Kelner
7 PM – Citizenship as a site of cultural responsibility
Conversation with Johanne Affricot, Laura Cabezas, Marta Federici and Sielke Kelner
7:30 PM – Discussion open to the public
Lateral Roma
Via Ferdinando Ughelli 28, Rome
Free entry until full capacity
Johanne Affricot is an independent curator and cultural producer, deeply invested in creating creative spaces as regenerative platforms to collectively cultivate and disseminate strategies and practices of radical imagination with profound cultural and social impact. Since 2015, she has curated exhibitions, public programs, and artist residencies supported by and in collaboration with diverse organizations, institutions, and companies, including: the American Academy in Rome; the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Coopereation; the Italian Cultural Institutes in Addis Ababa, Johannesburg, Dakar, and London; Contemporaneamente Roma; Der Grief; Gucci; Mattatoio; British Council; Palazzo delle Esposizioni; Polo del ’900; Museo delle Civiltà; and the Swiss Institute in Rome. Since 2023, she has served as Curator-at-Large at the American Academy in Rome and is the founder and artistic director of SPAZIO GRIOT and GRIOTmag.
Laura Cabezas is a Colombian cultural operator based in Rome, working at the intersection of contemporary art, cultural institutions, and participatory, socially engaged practices. She currently co-runs the programming at Lateral Roma and serves as the Communications Officer at the American Academy in Rome, where she oversees the strategy and communications for public programs and supports the coordination of collaborations and community engagement with local and international partners. She has been involved in a wide range of independent and institutional projects and organizations across Europe, North America, and South America in the fields of art, cultural activation, and social impact.
Marta Federici is a curator and art historian. She co-directs the independent space Lateral Roma (Roma, IT) and the curatorial platform LOCALES, within which she conceived and co-curated the visual arts and performance biennial program If body 2023/2024 in Rome. As of October 2024, she works as a researcher in the curatorial department of Madre Donnaregina Contemporary Art Museum in Naples. She curated exhibitions and public programs in Italy and abroad, including: Magazzino Italian Art, New York; 3 137 / Enterprise Projects, Athens; Museo delle Civiltà, Rome; Kunsthalle Winthertur; Almanac Inn, Turin; Istituto Svizzero, Rome. In 2023, she was awarded an international research grant from the Italian Ministry of Culture's Italian Council XII program for the project Geografie dei sé / Geographies of the Selves.
Sielke Kelner is a researcher and activist specializing in media freedom and freedom of expression. Before joining the non-profit sector, she earned a PhD in History from the Geneva Graduate Institute, where she explored the role of transnational actors in promoting human rights in Central and Eastern Europe. Sielke holds both Italian and Romanian citizenship and is a member of the Italiani Senza Cittadinanza network.