Dr. Teresa Fiore at Frieze New York in Conversation with Dawit L. Petros (May 2021)

On May 7th, 2021 Dr. Teresa Fiore was part of Frieze New York, an international contemporary art fair that takes place every May (its counterpart in London takes place in October, and the one in Los Angeles in February). Fiore was invited by the Tiwani Contemporary Gallery of London to be in conversation with artist Dawit L. Petros about his exhibit Spazio Disponibile, addressing issues of Italy’s colonialism, emigration and immigration through photography, archival work, and video installation. Moderated by curator Irene Campolmi and included in the Vision & Justice Project, the virtual event aimed at providing a broader geography to the central theme of race and representation, able to encompass Africa and Europe and the spaces of mobility that connect them.

The Vision & Justice Project, founded by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Associate Professor at Harvard University, is dedicated to examining art’s central role in understanding the relationship between race and citizenship in the United States. Rooted in the prescient thinking of Frederick Douglass, and his post-Civil War speech ‘Pictures & Progress’, the project wrestles with the urgent question of how, in a democracy, the foundational right of representation and the right to be recognized justly, has historically—and is still—tied to the work of visual representation in the public realm.