Luca Vitone's Romanistan exhibition at Centro Pecci explores Roma journeys through installations and film

Luca Vitone's exhibition 'Romanistan' at Centro Pecci in Prato from November 8, 2019 to March 15, 2020 presents an ongoing series titled 'Eppur si muove' that engages with Roma culture and nomadism. The show features a 2019 road movie documenting Vitone's reverse migration journey from Bologna to Chandigarh, accompanied by Roma musician Santino Spinelli and his son Gennaro. This film screens daily in the museum cinema while a condensed video projection loops in the exhibition space. Vitone's travels included interviews with Roma politicians, activists, musicians and academics discussing culture, identity and discrimination. The exhibition traces connections to his 1994 project at Galerie Christian Nagel in Cologne involving the local Roma community. Personal elements include bronze-cast sandals representing his late father Rodolfo Vitone and postcards sent to his son Leo during the journey. The term 'Romanistan' originates from Bulgarian activist Manush Romanov's concept of an imagined homeland for Romanes-speaking peoples. Vitone's work incorporates atopic maps that replace conventional cartography with personal notations of site specificity.