Decolonizing Italian Visual and Material Culture: 
From Nation Building to Now

This research unit focuses on images, objects, architecture, and works of art that actively contributed to colonial imagery, grounded in artificial constructions of identity and otherness. By investigating objects ranging from looted artifacts to works of art produced in Italy and colonial contexts, the group addresses issues of artistic exchange, diplomatic controversy, restitution, archival practices, and display.
Taking the city of Rome as a starting point for a polycentric perspective, the group explores colonial culture and coloniality through two main categories of works: monuments in public spaces and objects in museums. The former examines how public spaces were shaped by colonial and fascist monuments, while the latter investigates the circulation of colonial objects and their relationship with narratives of exhibitions and museum displays from a diachronic perspective.
Spanning from liberal Italy to Fascism and into the present day, the group’s goal is to critically reconsider chronologies, categories, and taxonomies in art history through a transdisciplinary analysis of objects that traces their biographies from creation to afterlife, with particular attention to the process of heritagization.
With publications and scientific events, including research seminars, field seminars, and international conferences, the research unit contributes to the global debate on the decolonization of contemporary visuality and cultural heritage, while encouraging the participation of junior scholars. Among these initiatives, the lecture series Colonial Objects and the Museum fosters a transnational dialogue on colonialism and decolonial theories and practices with academics and curators. 
The research unit has also established a collaboration with the Museo delle Civiltà, which holds the collections of the former Museo Coloniale, to conduct provenance research and organize joint scientific events.
In 2023, Carmen Belmonte edited the volume A Difficult Heritage. The Afterlives of Fascist-Era Art and Architecture. The book brings together scholars and curators from a variety of disciplines to critically examine the afterlives of Fascist-era artifacts. It addresses issues of restoration, display, and the critical preservation of artifacts in public and institutional spaces, drawing comparisons with practices in other countries, including Germany and the United States.

As of 2024, the research unit has established a five-year partnership with the Centre Lucien Febvre at the Université Marie et Louis Pasteur in Besançon through the Max Planck Partner Group Sport, Body, and Race in Fascist Visual Culture led  by Sara Vitacca. This collaboration aims to investigate how images, objects, works of art, and architectural spaces dedicated to sport played a pivotal role in shaping the imagery of the athletic body and its mobilization as part of the fascist regime’s hygienic and racial propaganda.

“Decolonizing Italian Visual and Material Culture” is an active member of the network project SPAZIDENTITÀ. Spazialità materiale e immateriale della costruzione nazionale italiana dalla Repubblica Cisalpina alla fine del Fascismo, funded by the École Française de Rome (2022–2026). 

Research Topics

Race, emigration, transnational relations, Italianità abroad, art and politics, propaganda strategies, colonialism, Orientalism within and outside the nation, Futurism, fascism, national exhibitions, museum collections, colonial heritage, political use of the body, construction of sexual stereotypes.