At the same period that Italian architects had their hands full of new projects to build the new national identity, Ethiopia had their land full of Italian soldiers trying to expand the Italian colonial territories, leaving a trail of blood behind.
The project of the Casa del Mutilato, the setting for Trialogue, began in 1936, the very year that Mussolini declared the Italian Empire after invading Addis Ababa with mustard gas. That same year, Haile Selassie I, Imperial Majesty, Emperor of Ethiopia gave a speech at the League of Nations appealing for justice for his people against the atrocities committed by Italy in his home country.
Also in 1936, British artist Sylvia Pankhurst launched the first issue of her self-published weekly newspaper New Times and Ethiopian News. For Liberty, International Justice and Democracy, a pro-Ethiopian and anti-fascist publication. Sylvia Pankhurst was a committed activist who fought tireless against the Italian fascist occupation of Ethiopia. Alongside her anti-fascist efforts, she was also a trained artist and had previously participated in the women’s suffrage movement with her mother and sisters. She published newspapers, organized protests and sent numerous letters to British Parliament and people of influence to demand justice and advocate for the rights of Ethiopian people. In 1956 she moved to Addis Ababa, where she lived until the end of her days, when she received a state funeral in 1960.
Sylvia Pankhurst, a woman, as she described in a letter to President Roosevelt, “a humble and unofficial person with only one title: I have been fighting for justice all my life”, has positioned herself between two powerful male figures: Benito Mussolini and Haile Selassie – the aggressor and his opponent – and she squawked from her place using her tools. She didn’t bow to the cynicism and opportunism of neutrality; moreover, she brought to the dialogue the perspective of other important allies.
What can we learn from Sylvia Pankhurst’s position as an artist in practice? A white European woman that assumes the responsibility for a third nation that was not her own. How do we legitimize her responsibilities in the position she comes from? Angela Davis has a plea that in a racist society it is not enough to be non–racist, we must be anti-racist. Sylvia was anti-racist, anti-fascist, and feminist.
Trialogue Act 2 is a reflection on positionality and personal responsibility in the face of societal issues. Sylvia Pankhurst, more than an artist and activist, is a role model when one needs to look for courage and emotional capacities to act for justice. She shows us that one can also be outsider but must still act. An urgent task.
The theatrical performance began with Act 1 presented in the atrium of Casa del Mutilato, the fascist building in Palermo, in June 2018. At the entrance of this very building stands Benito Mussolini’s speech declaring of the Italian Empire carved in stone and still in place since 1936, evoking the ideas of colonization and civilization. Trialogue Act 2 brings in other voices that are part of the same history but absent from this architectural space. A collage composed of the Benito Mussolini’s speech declaring of the Italian Empire on 09 May 1936, and the editorial text from the first issue of New Times and Ethiopian News launched by Sylvia Pankhurst in 15 May 1936 and Haile Selassie’s speech at the League of Nation on 20 June 1936, composes a shrill and critical conversation between the three characters, challenging the ideological message embedded in the building’s architecture.
