Italian Restorer Alessandra Di Francesco on UNESCO's Revive the Spirit of Mosul Mission

Alessandra Di Francesco, a Roman artist and restorer born in 1965, traveled to Mosul, Iraq, in early 2023 under a UNESCO contract as part of the 'Revive the Spirit of Mosul' initiative launched in 2018. The program focuses on restoring historical and architectural heritage while strengthening educational and cultural institutions. Mosul, capital of Nineveh Governorate, was occupied by ISIS in June 2014 and liberated in summer 2017 after heavy US bombing and urban warfare. The city remains scarred, especially the western side with Ottoman walls and the old city museum. Di Francesco worked as a restorer and teacher from February to April 2023, instructing twelve students from the University of Mosul's Faculty of Fine Arts. She traveled via Baghdad and Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, due to Mosul's destroyed airport. She witnessed destroyed sites like the Al-Tahera church and described the landscape as apocalyptic. The experience, she says, will influence her artistic practice, which already involves the concept of the 'lacuna'—turning absence into presence.