Photography between Desire and Disillusionment. West African Studio Portraiture, Diaspora, and Italy in the Work of Silvia Rosi

Abstract

The article examines Silvia Rosi’s artistic practice, by exploring some of its topics such as family trans-generational memories, diasporic and trans-national life, the racialization of gaze and visual representation. Especially Rosi’s photography – through which the artist visualizes a representation of Black subjects in Italy – is an act of wish fulfillment. It homes in on the importance of visual representation and its cultural politics in relation to constructions of (and potentially, changes to) national identity and belonging.