ICI London is delighted to present Romanistan, a film by the director and artist Luca Vitone. The screening will be introduced by a conversation between Vitone and curator, writer, and art historian Iwona Blazwick OBE, currently announced as the Curator of the 18th Istanbul Biennial (2023).
On May 25, 2019, Luca Vitone and his crew left Bologna for Chandigarh, to retrace the Roma people’s migration from North West India to Europe at the end of the first millennium. His troupe comprised an exponent of Romaní culture in Italy, a director of photography, a sound engineer, a production and logistics employee, and two drivers. The film is a true road movie crossing the Balkans, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Iran, and Pakistan to reach India, to interview Roma living in those countries.
ROMANISTAN
By Luca Vitone
Italy, 2019, 73’
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Iwona Blazwick OBE is a curator, writer, and art historian. She was Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London from 2001 – 2022 and was formerly at Tate Modern and London’s ICA. She is a curator for the Royal Commission’s Arts AlUla project in Saudi Arabia. She has curated numerous solo shows and group exhibitions of modern and contemporary artists from around the world. She inaugurated the Tate Turbine Hall and Whitechapel Gallery commissioning programmes; and has been an independent curator of survey shows and public art commissions in Europe and the US, Japan, and China. She serves on the advisory boards of the Mayor of London’s Fourth Plinth Commission in Trafalgar Square; and the City of London’s annual Sculpture in the City project.
Luca Vitone began to work in the second half of the ’80s. His work explores the way places are identified through cultural production: art, cartography, music, cuisine, political associations, and ethnic minorities. Since 2006, he has been teaching at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan. The work of Luca Vitone has been shown in public and private spaces both in Italy and abroad, among them: Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2019); Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Moscow (2018); P.A.C., Milan (2017); Triennale di Milano (2015); Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2014); 55th Venice Biennale (2013). In 2018, with the project entitled Romanistan, he was among the winners of the fourth edition of the Italian Council, a call for proposals launched by the Directorate General for Contemporary Creati-vity of The Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (MiBACT).
Cover Image. Romanistan by Luca Vitone. Courtesy-Photology.