Lecture Against Borders by Gracie Mae Bradley & film screening of Monowe by Ludovica Carbotta

20/03/2025, 06.30 PM

Events

What do borders do?

This is the question that opens Against Borders. The Case for Abolition by Gracie Mae Bradley and Luke De Noronha, a manifesto essay that explores the implications of borders and proposes their abolition. The book inspired the workshop I Come from Outside of Myself by Ludovica Carbotta, in collaboration with Vittoria Martini and Jacopo Tomassini.

At the end of the first day of the workshop, on Thursday, March 20th at 6.30 pm, writer and activist Gracie Mae Bradley will give a public lecture on Against Borders. The book provides an in-depth critique of contemporary border regimes while offering critical openings for alternative futures. Borders not only divide workers and families but also fuel racial divisions, reinforce disparities, and promote the development of surveillance and control technologies. In the publication, Bradley and de Noronha remind us that borders are not just physical barriers separating nations—they are everywhere, encountered daily. They follow us and place themselves between us and others, damaging collective security, freedom, and prosperity.

Following the lecture, Monowe (2024), the first feature film by Ludovica Carbotta, will be screened. The film tells the story of an imaginary city inhabited by a single person. The city consists of a house, a museum, a watchtower, and a courthouse, where the solitary citizen plays all the roles: judge, defendant, lawyer, and witness in a trial that emerges from their memories. The film explores the various stages of the city, its catastrophic past, and the possibilities of future survival.

Admission is free subject to availability.
For more information: [email protected]

Workshop

20/03 — 22/03/2025

I Come From Outside of Myself

Ludovica Carbotta

Workshop

GRACIE MAE BRADLEY
Gracie Mae Bradley is a writer, policy expert, and campaigner focused on civil liberties, state power, Black feminism, and abolition. Bradley is the co-author of Against Borders. The Case for Abolition (Verso, 2022) and has written for publications like The Guardian, OpenDemocracy, and Vice. She has over a decade of experience in creating strategies for systemic change in solidarity with people at the sharpest end of unfair power structures. Bradley holds a BA (Hons) in Philosophy & French from Trinity College, University of Oxford, and an MSc in Human Rights from the LSE. From autumn 2024 she is a James McCune Smith Scholar at the University of Glasgow studying for a Doctorate in Fine Art in Creative Writing. She is currently working on a novel and is the host of the Locating Legacies podcast for the Stuart Hall Foundation. 

LUDOVICA CARBOTTA
Born in Turin in 1982, Ludovica Carbotta is a visual artist who lives and works in Barcelona. Standing on the border between reality and fiction, her works combine installations, sculptures and videos reflecting on the notion of place, identity and participation. She studied Painting at the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin and holds a Master's degree in Fine Art from Goldsmiths University in London, after attending, on an Ariane de Rothschild Prize scholarship, Central Saint Martins London between 2011 and 2012. She has exhibited in solo shows at institutions such as Fondazione smART - Polo per l'arte, Rome; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; OGR - Officine Grandi Riparazioni, Turin; Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur; MAMbo - Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna. In addition, in 2019, Carbotta participated in the 58th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. Her works have been included in private and museum collections such as Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Rivoli-Turin; MACRO - Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rome; MA*GA - Museo d'Arte Gallarate; Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno - IVAM; Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Torino; La Biennale di Venezia; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Fondazione CRC, Cuneo. She teaches Sculpture at BAU, University Center for Art and Design in Barcelona.