Justin Randolph Thompson
is an artist, cultural facilitator and educator based in Italy since 1999. He is Co-Founder and Director of Black History Month Florence and The Recovery Plan. Thompson is a recipient of a 2022 Creative Capital Award, a 2020 Italian Council Research Fellowship, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, a Franklin Furnace Fund Award and a Visual Artist Grant from the Fundación Marcelino Botín amongst others. His work and performances have been exhibited widely in institutions including The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and The American Academy in Rome and are part of numerous collections including The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Museo MADRE. His life and work seek to deepen the discussions around cultural stratification and the arrogance of permanence fostering projects that connect academic discourse, social activism and DIY networking strategies in annual and biennial forms of gathering, sharing and collectivity.