Naples is certainly a place of dramatic juxtapositions... rich and poor, sacred and profane, the living and the dead... but surely none more bizarre than the house of US civil rights heroine Rosa Parks sitting in the courtyard of the Palazzo Reale?
It's such a weird transplantation that it somehow seems utterly normal. You have to do a double take or two before you can assimilate the fact that, yes, this is what you are actually looking at...
This white clapboard house used to stand in Detroit, where Parks went to live after her 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a bus made Alabama too hot for her.
In 2008 the house was due for demolition but Parks's niece bought it and gave it to artist Ryan Mendoza. After failing to get support to save the building, Mendoza took it to pieces and moved it to his studio in Berlin.
A plan to take it back to the States to be part of a civil rights exhibition fell through... and that's when Naples stepped in and offered space for it to be displayed, under the title Almost Home.
Perhaps it is the incredible nature of the journey of the Rosa Parks house that somehow resonates with the lives of all of us.
How on earth did we end up where we are? Is "almost home" as good as being home? Or is "almost home" the nearest we're ever going to get to a neat ending?
Wow, that's astonishing! I think the last time I was in Naples was before the house was moved there - definitely something to add to the list for my next visit!
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