 Good morning. Good morning Francesco. Good morning everybody who's thinking in with us today. It's great that we can do this conversation. This is I think the first in the program of live interventions as part of Me Family, which is a new digital project that's been developed by Moudam Luxembourg, the Musée d'Art Moderne conduction, and which was launched last week. And I'm delighted. My name is Suzanne Cotter, and I'm the director of Moudam Luxembourg, and I'm delighted to be able to have this brief exchange with Francesco Bonami, who is in fact the curator of Me Family, the project, which I'll explain in a moment, together with Immanuela Monsonis and with the participation of Luigi Alberto Cipini. The project Me Family actually began as an exhibition, an exhibition conceived from Moudam, for the spaces of Moudam, and Francesco, you were invited to develop this exhibition based on an idea that you yourself had, which related to the iconic exhibition of Edward Stysian, called The Family of Man. It's an exhibition that was actually presented at the Museum of Bononate in New York in 1955, and then subsequently traveled to 150 museums around the world. It involved 503 photographs by 273 artists from 68 countries, and the sweep of Stysian's curatorial thesis was a kind of universalised view of humanity through the cycles of life from birth until death. That exhibition in its exhibition form is preserved and on this permanent display here in Luxembourg, in the north of the country, in the town of Clairville. So it's an archive, it's kind of a living archive, and it was this archive that was the point of departure for you. I'd like to think, ask you to talk a little bit more about that beforehand. I would just like to explain that the exhibition that you did develop for us was subsequently transformed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and quite early on, I think as early as March, when the pandemic began to really unfurl here in Europe, and we realised that the movement of artists and of people that were needed to realise the exhibition was becoming more and more difficult. You, in fact, I remember an email saying, maybe in light of the content of the show and what the show was about, it should just all be digital anyway. We spent a couple of months thinking about that during lockdown, looking at scenarios, and then really exploring whether it really would be a viable thing for us to do, and if we could do it, how could we do it in a way that was substantial and somehow maintain some of the integrity or the integrity of the original curatorial project. So that we did do, and we were able to collaborate with Bass Design, who have studios in Brussels and also in New York, as well as with you and Emmanuel Luigi Alberto and our curatorial and communications and technical teams here at the museum. We also were able to bring on board the collaboration of all of the artists whose work is shown, who really are at the centre of this entire project, but to create something that we don't really talk about as an exhibition as such, but it's a platform for engagement, it's a platform for visibility for their work, and for users or viewers to be able to interact with it to some degree. So it's become another project. It's really been quite radical for us to be able to do it. Very exciting. We didn't know what to expect at the beginning. We also produced a publication, which exists alongside this platform, and that's something that also is available to purchase online. But back to the project, Francesco, can you tell us something about the way you developed the original curatorial concept and how that's morphed into this project that we're really engaging with now online? Well, good morning. I'm Francesco Monami, and together with Demanduella Mazzonis, we start thinking about this exhibition, The Family of Men, 1955, and it's a very important year because I was born there. So I'm not joking. But the show by Heggro Steghin at Noma was very radical, and I started looking into this exhibition and how it developed in that year. We were talking 65 years ago, and at that time Steghin did something that today, from a curatorial point of view, is almost impossible. He took many, many, it was a show based on photography. There was no other medium, but it was about photography. And it took the work of famous photographer of different nature and knowledge and vision and reassemble it into this exhibition, changing scale, changing cropping. It was something that some of the photographers in the exhibition didn't even like the approach of Steghin, but went along with it. And the exhibition became a real experiment in museum exhibitions. And one thing that caught my attention and that the show was produced in a few editions and could travel simultaneously around the world. I think it traveled in 80 venues in 1955 all around the world, sometimes simultaneously. And again, it's something that today we could not do it. Not because, of course, a painting cannot be shown simultaneously in 80 places or even two places. A sculpture cannot be shown. But to me, it was a reflection on the nature of art in an age that many artists work digitally through photography, through video, through film, medium that can be actually shared simultaneously. I reflect on the idea that artists become more protective on their uniqueness of the authorship. So sometimes if you ask an artist, can we show this video here and there? They say, oh, no, unfortunately not because the video is in two editions. And the one is there and the other one is there and it cannot be shown again unless you... And I found on interesting, not in a negative way, but interesting in the fact that in an age that allowed to share things, some artists have become more, you know, they like to share less. And that was an interesting idea that makes me think. I mean, our dream would have been to do something like Stuyken, to do a show, a multiple show that could be shown everywhere. Then COVID came and we didn't even went into this idea that would have been almost impossible to do it. But COVID came and I think I'm not a digital person at all. I'm not someone obsessed with online things and things of that. But with my surprise, you, Suzanne, came along and start reflecting on the possibility of transforming something very physical in, as you call it, not digital, but a platform. We didn't transform the exhibition in a digital version of the exhibition. We utterly transformed the nature of the idea into something completely different, which is becoming a platform. And I hope that people will enjoy this format of talking about something. We cannot stay showing about something. And I think that I'm not here praising Moodham because they... First, I praise them because we present to Suzanne the Idea with Emmanuela. I want to just do a little note. Stuyken was originally from Luxembourg. And there is a museum of the family of men near Luxembourg, which is fantastic. And I encourage everybody, even during lockdown, if it's open, to go to visit the museum of the family of men because it's a fascinating place with some original pieces of the original exhibition at MoMA. So it's really an amazing experience. So I will encourage. But the link with Stuyken and Luxembourg was very strong. And Suzanne liked the idea for the exhibition. And after, she was able to push this other idea of the platform, which it could sound normal, but it's not. A lot of institution during COVID postponed indefinitely or bluntly canceled the exhibition. And I understandably. And Moodham instead wanted to go along with the exhibition on another dimension. And we succeeded with all the help of everybody. I mean, this effort would not have been possible without the involvement of everybody, you know. All the curators, the marketing, the everybody in the museum, Emmanuela Mazzone's, Luigel Betoshipini, all the artists that have been involved. I mean, it sounds idealistic, but I don't see anything wrong in a moment like this to be a little bit idealistic. I think it was a very collective effort where, in a way, you know, we all joined forces to produce something quite experimental and quite fascinating. If it will work, if it will be a success, well, that part of the experiments are beautiful because allow the possibility of exploring new venue and exploring new way of failing, new way of succeeding and things like that. So I think that what we're doing now is also one of the little fragments of this experiment. And I think we prove that in a moment of crisis we can still do something which is propositional. We can propose something and we don't sit back and wait the crisis to finish. I mean, we use this banality where you never waste a crisis, you know? And I think that we can say that we didn't waste a crisis. I mean, Francesca, for a couple of points. I mean, one is, I mean, thanks for your really kind words about us, the team, but, you know, part of the process of reflection about what we would do was sort of, we didn't want to go through a period of mourning, let's say we did go through a little period of mourning about the exhibition where we realised we had to take the decision not to go ahead with the physical exhibition. But I, as a director, was really bolstered, actually, by many of the younger members of the team at Muldang who we were during one of our weekly Zoom afternoon teas during the lockdown here in Luxembourg. We talked about it and I said, this is what we're going to do, you know, we're thinking about and a number of the, a number of colleagues, young, the younger colleagues, you know, in different services said, but we're doing all this work, we're thinking about the digital, you know, it would be wonderful if we could do it. So they were really, I think I was encouraged by them because they sort of really saw the potential. So I think that, you know, knowing that there was a dispersed energy and will to sort of take it through. But I also, you know, other things I think what's interesting about the platform and I've spent time going through it all is how, I mean, I've been so impressed really myself by how much the work that is on the platform engages you and the ideas of the artists and at times I felt very moved watching it. And I noticed one of my colleagues here, Eve Hoffman, talked about how many people that he knows who sit outside of the art world who are not regular museum visitors have because of the communication around the platform had been engaging with it and were very, very comfortable with it because people, I used to sitting in front of a computer screen and they're more comfortable watching a lot of the durational work because a lot of the work on the platform is film and animations and it's durational. They're much more comfortable engaging with it on the screen than they might be in going into a museum and into a big spatial installation. So that, you know, that's, I think that's an interesting feedback. But I wanted to also pick up on your point when you were talking about Stysian's exhibition itself. And I remember when we went to Clairville to visit it together, it must be two years ago now, and although you knew about it, you've not actually visited it where it is held here in Luxembourg. And I remember you being struck by the fact that Stysian had worked with photojournalists. And, you know, you mentioned the radicality of the exhibition, but the fact that Stysian himself was a photographer associated with pictorialism and the 291 Gallery and Modernity and, you know, photography, photography's history and its evolution in being recognized as a fine art medium to be doing this exhibition where he's working with photojournalists. So there was a kind of promiscuity that's embodied in this particular exhibition. And it struck me when looking through going through the platform and engaging with the many different works that you and Amanda Manuela sort of selected for me family, that there is a similar kind of promiscuity, even though we can engage with all of this by way of digital technology, we're looking at very different forms. So we have this more pure, let's call it video in the work of Doug Aitken, which is amazing on screen. I mean, we think of Doug Aitken's work experiencing it really in this immersive, very physical, corporeal way. But actually, it's still incredibly compelling when you view it on screen. But then you have other artists who are working with game technology. I'm thinking of Garam Kim's amazing videos. Harun Faraki, who's kind of a forensic drilling down into the history of visualization with the development of technology that contains within it certain, I think, critical reflections or it encourages you to have them. So I wonder if you could just say something about the selection of artists who are actually participating in this project? Well, again, we didn't want to do a remake of The Family of Man. But we reflected on the nature of the exhibition. And as you talk about the work from Isquiti between more art, photography and photojournalism. And I think we have been more, we became more, more sectorial in terms of selection of works in the proceeding in the last 65 years before there was photography. And within photography, I think there was a photojournalist, there was a fine art photography, but the boundaries were not so clear and divided. I think that, I don't know, but I don't think that Steichen was looking down to photojournalists when he was including Isquiti, was he looking at a little bit like a painter who can look at abstraction of figurative or photojournalism, not looking down, but as part of the same language, but with variation. It's like music. And today we are a little bit more sectorial, and so we were trying to look at an exhibition that was experiential. It was more up to time with the real world that we live now. I mean, a lot of young people see reality through digital media, through digital tools, through computer media, telephones. And so we are thinking maybe the way to pay an homage to the family of men was to look at through these mediums. So we limited actually almost excluded completely classical tool, medium like a sculpture or painting or something. Because we thought that that would be interesting to create an exhibition where the viewer was experiencing. And with the help of Luigio Matici Pini for the installation, we had conceived a show where you could go and simultaneously even listen to the sound of different videos and then be able to focus on each of them individually. But at the same time, we were stressing the cacophony of the exhibition as the reflection of the cacophony of the world. So that's the way we approached the show and the selection of the work. And we have to say that most of the artists really went along with that and was a refreshing way to see a show. And then, you know, because of the nature of the show, I think that that's why we are even into the circle of senses. We are able to be here because I want to stress it. What we did with the platform is not a replacement of the exhibition. Going to a museum as it will be, and I really am adamant about it, will always be a unique experience. Crossing the threshold of the museum, this symbolic space, like crossing the threshold of a theater, crossing the threshold of a movie theater, will never be replaced by any digital thing, you know? I think that comes across too in the platform because, for example, there are certain artists who participated, but whose work was actually physical, such as I'm thinking of Simon Fujiwara or the installation we're planning with Rudolph Stingel. So on the platform, you can see stills of different installation views of these works as they've been presented in different places. And I find it interesting because you could say they're a kind of document, they're not, they're a representation, but they don't pretend to be, this is the work. And in some ways, I like the fact that they say, well, you really would have to experience this in the place, in physically and in real time. So it's not trying to translate work into the digital medium, say, yes, you too can experience it. So I think it speaks to that point. We hope to enhance also the desire, you know, to see things. I think it's something that we all have experienced in our life to see an image of a famous work of art and having this desire to go to see it in real life. And so we hope that this will, even for the work, that cannot be really given the whole, not even the taste of what it is in real life, but give only the, as you say, it's not a documentation, just an hint of what the work could be in real life. We hope that the people will want, will increase the desire to go into the physical museum to see certain things that in the platform are just, let's say mentioned, but it cannot be really offered in the fair capacity of an experience, like Rudolf Stingel and Fujiyara. So I think that the platform becomes also a kind of a teaser for the real experience of those works or maybe other works. And now there is the permanent collection on Woodham that would have been part of the family, me family exhibition that can be seen and visited. And so I think that that, and what is told with the idea by the Chippini studio, installation. So I think that's also there with people can see, have a taste of what can be done within the real space of a museum in an innovative way, and to this full credit to the Woodham, to you and also to your team that came along. As you know, I've worked in museum and I've worked in institution, as a freelancer, and I have to admit that I always found certain resistance in changing the rules and the pattern of exhibition making. And in this case, I mean, I found a total porosity, porous environment willing to accept the, not my idea, but the circumstances and shape them into something that we hope is going to be strong enough to sustain the idea. I think this idea of porosity is, I'm seeing exactly the same word actually, I think it's really important that we think of that project of me family as being tremendously porous. I mean, I think we have five minutes to go before we're going to close off, but I did also want to just highlight the fact that in terms of the work that people can access on the platform, you know, among the many artists whose work is there, and projects such as the display, the permit collection display here in the museum. We have works by artists such as Sophia Almaria, who is this sort of incredible almost abstract work, but based on her and her sister walking through a Dubai mall, and Lara Baladi's amazing work, which is based on her archives of the Egyptian Revolution and its aftermath, and for which as an accompaniment to a kind of representation of that work, where there's also a portal into the archives, she's been developing since 2011, more of the revolutionary protests in Terrier Square in Cairo is very, very beautiful animation called a lesson in history. So the platform is also, you know, there's this porosity in that there are things that are presented, it gives you desire, there's things you can engage with, and there are works that have been made especially for it. And I think as a result of this sort of program, eight and a half as well, there'll be other content such as our content, but conversations with some of the artists that will continue to feed it. I mean, perhaps just a final point, we have three minutes, but maybe to hear from you Francesco, you know, to go back to Stysian's project, which I think is recognized as a was a universalizing portrait or an attempt to offer a universal portrait of humanity in the post-war nuclear age. I mean, this project, Me Family, it's less affirming in that way. You mentioned earlier this fact that it was really about the reality of now. And that reality of now is anything from certain. We cannot sort of, we cannot sort of place all of humanity and their desires, loves needs, disappointments all within the same compartment. I think, you know, and again, I think in relation to the idea of the digital or technology that it's not a panacea. It's not the answer. It's not the solution to everything, but it's part of a bigger set of possibilities. I just would like to hear from you on that before we say goodbye. Absolutely. I mean, it's not the panacea. It's not the cure. It's not the solution. It's not the replacement. And it's in a way more realistic way to look at the world with all those ups and downs. Nothing is taken for granted. While I think Steichen was more, in a way, idealistic, romancing, and also a little bit paternalistic. I mean, if we look at the show of Steichen today with the cynical eye, we could say that that was a little bit something like someone, I don't remember who call it, like National Geographic Photography in the sense that we look at the world as this, you know, where poverty become folkloristic, you know, stress and pain become kind of visually interesting. It was more the kind of, you know, kind of photography. Today, we are much more aware of the pain and inequality and injustice of the world. So, we cannot look with the same eyes that Steichen look at those things. We have to be very aware of that, very realistic, very respectful, and we cannot just take the world and turn it into our, as I say, National Geographic curatorial experience. I think that was a good good experiment and good experience for us, curator, and I hope for the mudam, to see how you look at the world. The name is Me Family, because today we look at the world from our own individual point of view, to the social media, Instagram, Facebook, and all this Twitter, but to stress the idea of the platform is that the platform is allowed in a way the viewer to have entered the idea of the former exhibition as more, more intimately and we, the viewer can embrace the show and put his voice or her voice or their voices into something quite new. That is something that in a museum cannot really do. People cannot, they're not allowed, but they're not, they don't feel comfortable to start voicing their enthusiasm or their protest against the work of art. They feel intimidated. The platform is, I hope, less intimidating and we hope that the viewer feel that way respecting the platform. That's the message to the viewer. We respect the viewer, the viewer should respect the platform and not find it a way where they can voice any possible. That's, I think, I look at things positively, let's say the great positivity of today's world, of the Mi family, as the social media are very dangerous, but at the same time they, for who can use it, develop a great sense of responsibility. What we say is our responsibility. So we can be angry, we can be happy, we can be, but it's our responsibility. What we say as curator, as viewers, as director of museum, is our responsibility. There is no safety net. We say something on the platform, you say it is there and you have to take full responsibility of what to do. So I think it's an encouragement to the viewer to participate it, but to participate in a responsible way as, you know, as responsible. We are all responsible. I think it's the show, if we can stress the last message of the exhibition, the Mi family should be an attempt to stress responsibilities. In any form and shape we can envision responsibilities. Art is curator, everything. So I really look, I hope that people will enjoy this way of understanding the art and the responsibility toward art and of art toward the people. Francesco, thank you so much. It's been fantastic speaking with you and thank you for this amazing project. Thank you for challenging us to go ahead. Have a great day. Thanks to everybody