On Being Present
A 2020 and 2021 collaboration between Black History Month Florence and the Gallerie degli Uffizi.
On Being Present
le Gallerie degli Uffizi (IperVisioni)
A cura di BHMF
On Being Present is a research project with a virtual platform via the website of the Uffizi in the form of a HyperVision; launched in February 2020 as a collaboration between Black History Month Florence and the Gallerie degli Uffizi that highlights the histories and historical context of the Black African figures present in a range of paintings throughout the Galleria degli Uffizi and Palazzo Pitti. Drawing upon a plethora of scholarly works and exhibitions in recent history, this project is a recovery of Blackness from directly within one of the most iconic collections of art in the world.
The images and writing connected to the second edition of On Being Present are the fruit of a two year collaboration with the Gallerie degli Uffizi are anchored within the very history for which the city of Florence is most known, yet the figures that they address are considered marginal to this history when they are considered at all. When we reflect upon the space of the museum as a site for research and advocacy we understand the urgency in shedding light on a range of presences, which have always been in plain sight but have struggled amid the evacuating of art historical canons and the academic framing of speculation.
