Wu Ming is a collective of writers and activists born in Bologna in 2000, currently composed of Roberto Bui (Wu Ming 1), Giovanni Cattabriga (Wu Ming 2) and Federico Guglielmi (Wu Ming 4). Wu Ming is the author of historical novels including 54, Manituana, L’Armata dei Sonnambuli and L’Invisibile Ovunque, published by Einaudi. The group has also published works of hybrid narration and non-fiction written with literary techniques, including reports, travel writing, history, critical essays on the environment and landscape, and an investigation into the unsaid in postcolonial Italy. The members of the Wu Ming collective have also founded the Wu Ming Foundation, a free federation of collectives, investigative groups, workshops, and artistic, cultural and political projects.
Viva Menilicchi!
Installation and urban walk (on 20 October 2018)
Many places in the city of Palermo are linked to the period of Italian colonialism (1869 – 1945) and its legacy, which is still very much present in the economic interests of Italian companies in Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia and in the flux of migrants who set out from those lands to reach the Sicilian coastline. Viva Menilicchi! (Long live Menilicchi!) were the words shouted by the socialists and anarchists of Palermo during the demonstration against colonialism in March 1896, one of the first in Europe, immediately after Italy’s defeat in the Battle of Adwa at the hands of the Abyssinian troops of the Negus Menelik II.
On 20 October Wu Ming 2 will lead a walk through the city, during which various voices will combine to recount forgotten stories. More information on the urban walk and the map of the itinerary are available here.
The project is also on view at the Teatro Garibaldi, with an interactive path created in collaboration with the Palermo-based collective Fare Ala.