(ANSAmed) - NAPLES, SEPTEMBER 15 - Rosa Parks has found a
home at the Royal Palace of Naples, in an installation by
American artist Ryan Mendoza titled "Almost Home - The Rosa
Parks House Project". Mendoza brought the historic home of the
African-American activist to the central courtyard of the
historic Palazzo Reale. Parks became an important symbol of
the civil rights movement in the US when, in 1955, she refused
to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in
Montgomery, Alabama. The exhibition was organised by the
Fondazione Morra Greco with support from the Region of Campania
and in collaboration with Campania Museums Regional Management.
Rosa Parks' home was originally located in Detroit, Michigan,
and was purchased by Parks' niece, Rhea McCauley, to save it
from being demolished. McCauley approached Mendoza for help
after struggling to find institutional support to restore the
home, and in 2016, Mendoza transported the house to his
residence in Berlin and rebuilt it in his backyard. "With the
'Almost Home - The Rosa Parks House Project', Ryan Mendoza keeps
alive the memory of Rosa Parks and all those who lived in the
house during a dramatic and conflicted moment in American
history, whose identity, today called into question by the
return of the Black Lives Matter movement, appears increasingly
fragile and contradictory due to the wounds of a colonial past
still open," said the show's curators in a statement. Entrance
to the installation is free, and runs through January
6.(ANSAmed).
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