Exhibition Curated by Professor Mike Watson Opens in Una Vetrina Gallery

“The Centre Being Rome,” an exhibition curated by JCU Professor Mike Watson, will run from April 7-12, 2016, in Una Vetrina gallery at Via del Consolato, 12 in Rome.

Vernissage: April 5 at 7 PM

Shiraz Bayjoo is the artist behind the installation. He composed “The Centre Being Rome” out of recent and historical images of Rome that have been painted over and laminated to a freestanding structure. The resulting work is meant to provoke and invite viewers to consider Rome’s situation as both a geographical center and ideological reference.

Bayjoo’s work, as part of an ongoing research project into post-colonialism, documents the power that some cities or regions have in attracting or diverting the flow of migrants and playing host to their stories. Bayjoo chose the title “The Centre Being Rome” of the exhibition to be a reference to Rome being the destination of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants each year and how this has shaped Rome’s social fabric.

This exhibition is one of six one-week long installations being held in Una Vetrina arising from collaborations between artists and Professor Watson, a critic and theorist. He has curated for the Nomas Foundation and at the 55th and 56th Venice Biennale, and he has also written regularly for Frieze, Art Review, and Radical Philosophy.

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