“The Recovery Plan is a space for critical thinking to rectify historical inaccuracy and to recover histories that still await narration.”
The Recovery Plan is an exhibition space, library, research, and community center for dialogue and transnational exchange on Afro-descendent cultures located in Florence, Italy, on the Santa Reparata International School of Art (SRISA) campus.
Founded in 2019, The Recovery Plan was born out of the over 500 events orchestrated, curated, coordinated, and co-promoted by Black History Month Florence since its inception in 2016.
Designed as a cultural repository for socially engaged education, the center hosts many events, seminars, retreats, workshops, and residencies reflecting upon Italy’s historic role as a site for cultural exchange.
The initiative advanced by The Recovery Plan is a rallying of voices aimed at facilitating cross-cultural research and dialogue. Associazione Culturale BHMF, an Italian non-profit, runs the center with a team of twenty volunteers and five advisors from different cultural fields.
Black History Month Florence—the first Black History Month initiative in Italy.
Curating, coordinating, and promoting an extensive pluri-institutional program every February, BHMF is dedicated to cultivating and promoting cross-institutional networks, collectivizing them in a single annual program dedicated to celebrating Black histories within the global context.
About the SRISA and The Recovery Plan Collaboration
SRISA has been partnered with The Recovery Plan since its inception, initially serving as the offices and gathering space for the BHMF organization during its formative years. Today, we provide permanent facilities and gallery space on our Santa Reparata campus.
The Recovery Plan embodies a central vision of SRISA’s cultural programming through coursework and faculty support while cultivating a connection to community values. This form of cross-pollination between the school and the research center expands the impact and educational potential offered through the experience of social engagement during Study Abroad programs.
The center is open to the public, SRISA students, and other institutions. Work within the center provides an opportunity to engage with the library, interact with The Recovery Plan team, and facilitate direct contact with the artists, activists, and academics hosted by the space.
The center’s monthly programming enriches SRISA’s cultural offerings and opens the school’s doors to the Florentine community.
Co-Founder Justin Randolph Thompson: Artist, Cultural Facilitator and Educato
Justin Randolph Thompson (b. 1979, Peekskill, NY) has lived in Italy since 1999 and is the co-founder and director of Black History Month Florence and The Recovery Plan. He has received numerous awards, including the 2022 Creative Capital Award, the 2020 Italian Council Research Fellowship, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, and the Franklin Furnace Fund Award. His work has been exhibited at institutions internationally such as The Whitney Museum of American Art, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, and The American Academy in Rome, and is part of numerous collections including The Studio Museum in Harlem and Museo MADRE.
Thompson’s life and work seek to deepen discussions around socio-cultural stratification and the arrogance of permanence of structures by employing fleeting, temporary communities as monuments and fostering projects that connect academic discourse, social activism, and DIY networking strategies in annual and biennial gatherings, sharing, and gestures of collectivity.
Co-Founder Janine Gaëlle Dieudji: Curator and Cultural Professional
Janine Gaëlle Dieudji has over a decade of experience in the art world. She has made significant contributions to publications such as the Phaidon art books “African Artists: From 1882 to Now” and “Vitamin C+” as well as “Collage in Contemporary Art.” Janine Gaëlle is the co-founder of The Recovery Plan in Florence, Italy, and has previously served as the director of exhibitions at MACAAL in Marrakech, Morocco. Her work primarily focuses on curatorial projects related to contemporary African art and artists, museums, and intercultural exchange.
In 2023, she joined the team at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (Washington DC,USA), where she continues to expand her curatorial practice.
The Recovery Plan: Artistic Practice and Legacy Work
This new team-taught fall academic semester abroad program introduces a select group of students across multiple universities to socially engaged positioning in relation to artistic production, history, and institutional narration as part of a hybrid approach.
Semester Study Program (Fall Semesters)
This special program, coordinated by Justin Randolph Thompson in collaboration with SRISA, led by a collective of faculty, visiting professors, and guest lecturers offers:
- Three core interconnected courses
- Two courses from the SRISA catalog to enhance their practice and complete semester course requirements
- Coursework that focuses on the community, visual culture, institutional exchange, and professionalizing practice
- Imaginative yet applicable hands-on work in local contexts as methodologies for the advancement of social causes
- Skills to confront and combat historical inaccuracies and cultural insensitivities through proactive collective work
- Access to SRISA student services
- Credits and transcripts are issued by SRISA through our partner institutions.
The program admissions are managed by SRISA. For more information contact: admissions@srisa.org
To find out more about Black History Month Florence, click here.
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