Artist's book based on a complex project linking Vernasca, Ethiopia and Jamaica according to two points of view, placing certain critical moments in Italy's colonial history in relation to the symbolism of Rastafarian tradition.
Negus has originated from a very specific historical event dating back to the time of the Italian occupation in Ethiopia in 1936, when a wounded soldier was forced to return to Vernasca (PC), Invernomuto's native town. On the occasion of his return, the community organized a joyful and obscure ritual in the main square during which was burnt the effigy of Haile Selassie I, last Negus of Ethiopia as well as the Messiah according to the Rastafarian cult, developed in Jamaica during the early 30s.
Invernomuto's project follows an itinerary that is initially biographical, but that expands and develops, linking Vernasca, Ethiopia and Jamaica according to two points of view: certain critical moments in Italy's colonial history are placed in relation to the symbolism of Rastafarian tradition. The book, further development of the project Negus, contains an extensive visual section developed drawing on various personal archives, two unpublished essays by David Katz and Anna Della Subin and an interview with the two artists held by Frida Carazzato and Emanuele Guidi.
Published on the occasion of the projects I-Ration, at ar/ge kunst (2014), and Negus – Far Eye, for the media façade at Museion (2014), Bolzano.
Invernomuto is the name of the artistic personality created in 2003 by (born 1983 in Piacenza) and Simone Trabucchi (born 1982 in Piacenza). Invernomuto is the author of a series of research projects structured in time and space, from which cycles of interconnected works derive. On a common theoretical basis, Invernomuto tends to think in an open and rhizomatic manner, developing different outputs that take the form of moving images, sounds, performative actions and publishing projects, within the framework of a practice defined by the use—as diffuse as it is precise—of different media. Reality is observed according to documentaristic principles and interests, but for the purpose of creating an imaginative and almost abstract representation, which offers wide margins for reflection and critical interrogation. In particular, Invernomuto investigates subcultural universes, moving through different practices, in which the vernacular language is one way of approaching and appreciating oral cultures and contemporary mythologies, observed with a gaze that aspires to be cross-fertilised and regenerated by it. The declared inauthenticity of some of the materials used plays a fundamental role in this process, which underlines not only the real but also the fictitious and distorted nature of the realities that Invernomuto explores. Founders of the record label and music organization Hundebiss, both artists also develop individual lines of research, with the musical projects Palm Wine and STILL.
