An exhibition entitled “Fluid Identities” will be hosted at the Bardo Museum in Tunis as part of the 16th Italian Language Week in the World. Through multimedia projections, video mapping and an iconic object symbolizing the encounter between different cultures, the exhibition aims to show that design, in the form of the artefacts that crowd our homes or as a tool to act on society, contributes to the shaping of a different idea of the Mediterranean: a new place of trade and exchange. The exhibition (17 October -10 November) is curated by professors Giuseppe Lotti and Debora Giorgi of the University of Florence, who are the coordinators of the project “Tempus 3D – Design pour le Developpement Durable des productions artisanales locales en Tunisie.”
As the organisers said, the media almost exclusively talk about the Mediterranean in connection to the stories of migrants and to reports on the uprisings and wars that ravage many of the countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. Historically, the Mediterranean has had a different meaning: it has always been a place for people and cultures to meet, discuss and trade. This long-dated trade involved objects that, over time, have been at the heart of diasporas, cross-fertilization and cross-breeding. The exhibition tells the story of trade between the two shores of the Mediterranean through the fluid exchange of objects and symbols, starting from the valuable and complex heritage exchanged between the realms of the material and immaterial.
