Elisabetta Benassi (Rome, 1966)
ELISABETTA BENASSI

The video of Elisabetta Benassi (1966, Rome) was filmed near the Italian coastal town, Latina, where Aeneas once set foot on land. On 4 October 2010, a group of one hundred refugees leave the boat and set foot on the mainland. Nobody turns the engines off, making the boot look like a kind of ghost ship that keeps boring its way deeper into the coastline.
Her Ships And Still More Ships – a piece about the historical, Afro- American shipping company, Black Star Line – can be seen in Mu.ZEE as well.
‘Ships And Still More Ships’. This was the ambitious slogan of the Black Star Line Steamship Corporation, a shipping company that came into existence in 1919. It was an initiative by Marcus Garvey, who wanted Afro-Americans and African goods to play a bigger role in the world’s economy. Elisabetta Benassi (b. 1966, Rome) highlights an exciting piece of forgotten history.
There is a video artwork by the same artist in Europacentrum, about a rudderless ship gradually running aground on the coastline.