Bentornato (‘Welcome Home’ in Italian), was an installation set up by Ashery during the opening night and part of More Fools in Town, a project curated by A Constructed World and Charlotte Laubard, Turin, 2005.

The exhibit included mass produced cultural appropriated figurines that Ashery collected in her travels, of an ‘Arab man’ finger puppet, a ‘Rastafrian man’ ashtray and a glass figure of a ‘religious Jew’ holding a knife and a baby, exposing racial and ethno-religious stereotypes and prejudices. Also in the collection were video works, drawings, towels with British footballers, collage work and a text on the history of the Jewish community in Turin, who have been historically displaced by force, ordered to wear red bandages on their shoulders, told to pay money  in order to be treated better and were forbidden to take up certain jobs and education. The exhibits displays a fictional collection of the artist, in her travels away from her ‘home’ in Turin. This work also relates to the growing demand and privilege of artists to travel and show works internationally. The constant movement makes the sense of home more complex.

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Additional project information: Welcome Home dedicated project website