Artist Fabien Marques has been selected by artconnexion for the new IDEAL residency in Collemacchia, Italy in September 2018, in partnership with the research and production platform The Museum for Loss and Renewal, run by artists Tracy Mackenna and Edwin Janssen.

"Before I left, my project was to try to address issues of migration in an Italian political context, marked by the rejection of European ideas and the return to populism. How does the province of Isernia live with migration flows today? How do they affect local communities?

My work is mostly the result of intensive research, so it felt natural to start these ones at the library of Venafro, the main canton town, the important city in the vicinity.

With the help of the staff there, I was able to go further in understanding the history of the region, and its strong link to migration. I was able, among other things, to consult the book by Anna-Lisa Carbone (1995), entitled Le cento patrie dei molisani nel mondo – literally: The 100 homelands of the Molisans in the world – which is partly based on anthropologist Camillo Carbone's thesis (1995), entirely dedicated to emigration in Molise, and whose work is integrally preserved at the library. Therefore, I approached the subject from a precise, factual, historical and sociological angle.

Excerpt from Fabien Marques' residency report, 2018