Guaiana Toscana

Ongoing Research

Starting from the Thornton Expedition - the aborted Medici colonial experiment in Northern Brazil (modern day French Guyana), and looking for the traces of the six Tupì Amazonians representatives that ended getting trapped in Florence, I began to delve deeply on issues of cancellation, mystification of traditions and identities, and the underlying problems of the construct of a white ideal of Italian society and identity.

The project received the support of a research grant by Italian Council 11 (Ministry of Culture) and made it possible to travel to Brazil, French Guyana, and other places to conduct research and hold public talks.

The content is currently being developed as a podcast, here. It will also manifest itself in the form of a Trattoria Guaiana and an open-source, participatory cuisine to disseminate knowledge about this story and provide an experience where tradition is no longer used to “other” people and practices and instead it includes and credits all the lives and cultures that contribute to it.

The research and the works are currently ongoing, but you can get a first sense from the video work and the pictures below.

Installation view, first presentation of ongoing research, ViaFarini, 2019, Milan.

TeleGuaiana, 2019.

4808271662098626, 2019, platinum and UV ink.

Foreground:
Portrait of Alessandro de 'Medici, duke of Florence, known as "Il Moro" (“the Black”), Agnolo Bronzino, about 1565-1569.

Background:
Guaianos Inexistentes, 2019, digital print, variable format.

Installation view, first presentation of ongoing research, ViaFarini, 2019, Milan.

Teleguaiana (2019) and Untitled (2020), installed at MADRE Naples for Rethinking Nature.
View from across Adriana Bustos’ Bestiario de Indias.