The stages

First stop: Agnone, May 2023

Dominique White’s first stop was in the small Italian town of Agnone, in the Molise region of Italy, to undertake a week-long workshop at the Pontificia Fonderia di Campane Marinelli – one of the oldest and most revered bell foundry in the world.
The history of the foundry is a long and fascinating one; the Marinelli family founded the studio over a thousand years ago, and it remains very much a family run business today. In addition to bells, the foundry produces bronze portals, bas-reliefs using the same tried and tested techniques and materials. Dominique White was able to work closely with the team there, gaining new skills and deepening her understanding of the process involved in casting and pouring bronze.

Second stop: Palermo, May 2023

“I feel like I can disappear quite easily in Palermo... We’ve been talking about Black Saints, which has been for me, deeply fascinating because it’s not a subject that I have touched upon before” – Dominque White

In the ancient Sicilian capital of Palermo, White met up with Giovanna Fiume, a renowned Historian and former Professor of Modern History, to gain insights into the complex historic and contemporary slave trade in the region. White and Fiume embarked on a series of dedicated one-to-one tutorials and visits to sites in and around Palermo, including a trip to Santa Maria di Gesù, a Baroque church which holds the grave of St. Benedict the Moor (1526-89), a patron saint in Palermo known for his charity who was the freed son of African slaves.

Third stop: Genoa, June-July 2023

“The sea is a complex thing. The ship is an even more complex thing” – Massimo Corradi, Professor of History of Science and Structural Engineering, University of Genoa.

In Genoa, Dominique undertook a concentrated investigation into the ship – a key figurehead of this work and her practice more widely. She is fascinated by the ship’s power as both a symbol and object; from its materiality, its construction, its multifaceted complex and conflicted histories, and its status as a catalyst for establishing dominant global powers.
Under the tutelage of Professors Claudia Tacchella and Massimo Corradi, who specialise in construction science and history, White visited some of the most significant naval and archaeological museums and archives across Genoa, looking at the history of shipwrecks, the content of these wreckages and the geopolitical significance of the lost ships.

Fourth stop: Milan, July 2023

White has been in Milan during the month of July. Here, in the northern capital, the artist has participated in a workshop at Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, honing her skills in the centuries-old tradition of creating handmade bronze artefacts using an intricate lost-wax casting technique.

As the artist told Giulia Giaume from Artribune, “I have always worked with iron and seen bronze as a more decorative material […] the lack of previous knowledge on the subject allows me to […] access any possibility: it is very exciting.” During her residency, White has been exploring the nautical term ‘deadweight tonnage’, a measurement of the capacity of a ship to bear weight, considering both its relevance to the historical slave trade and to its contemporary forms in the Mediterranean. While in Milan, the artist has also visited the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, the largest science and technology museum in Italy, which houses in its collection the Enrico Toti submarine, the first submarine built in Italy after WWII.

Fifth stop: Todi, August-October 2023

On the final leg of her Italian residency, Dominique has spent two months in Todi in Umbria developing her metalworking practice under the guidance of Michele Ciribifera, who for many years worked as an assistant to sculptor Beverly Pepper (1922-2020). The artist has been busy in the studio, learning new techniques, approaches and experimenting with metalworking fabrications whilst exploring local foundries and visiting metalworking companies.