Annual Report 2008-9 - The British School at Rome

Pound, 2009, by Penelope Cain (Australia Council Resident)
Celia Hempton, Eddie Peake and Liz Rideal) opened on 12
May at Æmilia Hotel in Bologna. Katie Cuddon, Celia
Hempton and Eddie Peake participated in the seventh
edition of Spazi Aperti, curated by Mirela Pribac at the
Romanian Academy. The second edition of Academy
Architects at the Acquario at the Casa dell’Architettura, curated
by Shara Wasserman, opened on 3 June. This included
Joseph Bedford and Pierre Gendron, the inaugural Quebec
Architecture Resident.
Don’t Look Away, the final Fine Arts exhibition for 2008–9,
opened on 12 June, involving new works by Joseph Bedford,
Katie Cuddon, Graham Durward, Pierre Gendron, Celia
Hempton, Eddie Peake, David Spero and Amikam Toren.
David Spero was invited to take part in the exhibition A
Question of Time. Roman Campaigns: Historical and Contemporary
Photography, which opened on 15 June at the American
Academy in Rome. The show combined historic
photographs of Rome with new interpretations of the same
sites by six contemporary photographers.
The year was given a fitting conclusion on 27 June with
the performance/exhibition Second Style: an Odyssey Frieze,
conceived and directed by Ralegh Radford Rome Scholar
Marden Nichols, staged in the BSR gallery — adorned with
large scale mural replicas of the first-century BC Odyssey
Frieze painted by Celia Hempton — and performed by
Katie Cuddon, Celia Hempton, Jessica Harris, Sarah
Keenan-Jones, Duncan Keenan-Jones, and Joseph Bedford.
F I N E A R T S S C H O L A R S ’ A C T I V I T I E S
This was followed by a farewell party in honour of Andrew
and Jo Wallace-Hadrill.
A series of monthly screenings of films on modern Rome
made between 1945 and 2005 ran throughout the year. The
films were selected and introduced by David Forgacs and
Jacopo Benci, who also discussed each film with the
participating residents.
Fine Arts site visits included a tour of a selection of the
Rome galleries opening for the October Roma Art Weekend;
a visit to Monte Testaccio, the Protestant Cemetery, the
Testaccio quarter, and Luigi Moretti’s Ex-GIL on 21
October; and a joint Fine Arts and Humanities trip to
Vicenza and Parma for the Palladio and Correggio
exhibitions (7–9 November). A walk around the 1930s–40s
monumental area of EUR, on 9 February 2009, included
specially arranged tours of the Palazzo dei Congressi and
the Palazzo degli Uffici. A second visit to Luigi Moretti’s
Ex-GIL, hosted by Architect Luigi Prisco of Regione Lazio,
took place on 19 February, and a tour of the 1920–31
Garbatella council-housing estates took place on 17 April.
Scholars were provided with information on events at the
other foreign academies and at Rome galleries and
museums; and were given advice and support for individual
and group explorations of Rome and further afield. An
excellent example of a fruitful use of these opportunities
was Joseph Bedford’s film The Walls of Rome: Towards
DeTermination, shown at the School in the Don’t Look Away
exhibition. The film had been growing through the year,
incorporating places, issues and people Joseph had come
across through discussions, film screenings and site visits
and through contacts secured by members of staff.
Research Assistant Alessandra Giacinti provided
constant, effective support for all of the events, worked on
sourcing materials and suppliers for the Fine Arts scholars,
and helped them engage with the city.
Jacopo Benci
Assistant Director (Fine Arts)
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