Of the Moon and Velvet
Description:
The film Of the Moon and the Velvet by Sammy Baloji documents the production of bronze sculptures made by the artist since 2017, beginning from photographic negatives of the textures of Congolese fabrics, of which more than 20 examples (2 of which are exhibited in showcases at the entrance of Palazzo delle Scienze) are preserved in the collections of the Museum of Civilizations. Baloji interprets the production process of his sculptures – which includes the 3D printing of fabric casts, the fusion of copper and tin, and the final casting and molding – as an attempt to recover the craftsmanship of the Kingdom of Congo dating back to the precolonial era and dispersed at the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade. This knowledge is introduced, in filigree, by the words of the scientist Galileo Galilei (who in 1611 was at the Collegio Romano, the original location of these fabrics in Rome): in speaking of the moon and its craters, observed with the telescope in the same years in which fabrics circulated in the various European courts, Galilei com- pares them to velvet, a term of comparison used to describe the Congolese fabrics at the time. The video also contains another quote, that of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Pacheco Pereira (1460-1533) who states: «in this Kingdom of Congo they make fabrics with palm fibers with a surface like velvet». The circuits of precolonial and colonial history therefore project these fabrics onto the stars, which seem to live multiple lives and assume multiple meanings, bringing the complexity of African and European history to the center of the film and reflecting onto it the connections between material culture, intellectual speculation, political, and economic interests. ML
