Lecture Unexpected landscapes: Contested histories and narratives by artist and researcher Leone Contini

On November 23rd 2022, the program group Heritage on the margins: new perspectives on heritage and identity within and beyond nationalorganized a lecture Unexpected landscapes: Contested histories and narratives by Italian artist and researcher Leone Contini. The lecture was organized as a part of his exhibition in the Match Gallery. Leone Contini, whose work focuses on the intersections of anthropology, estetics and politics, spoke about constructed landscapes in Tuscany region and the interplay between the global migration and local sentiments. Tuscany is the destination for various migration movements from Africa and Asia, especially China which created play grounds and batllefields for intercontinental agricultural experiments. Local Chinese’s small family gardens grew into fields that were able to provide vegetables for a large proportion of the local Chinese communities. In 2009, a media campaign full of vitriol against immigration and »foreign farmers« began that lead to confiscation of the farms and greenhouses. In the focus of the xenophobic discourse againts Chinese farmers is the fear againts »foreign«, »invasive« species that grow in the Tuscan soil and which could, at least, metaphorically threaten local Italian inhabitants. Lepne Contini’s lecture therefore addressed ideological intersections among soil, food, and global mobility of people and vegetables, highlighting possibilities of »forein« seeds creating unexpected landscapes where a mixyure of Chinese gourds with vinyards, olive trees and cypresses give rise to more inclusive and sustanaible societies.