Irene Ros, University of Edinburgh
My PhD project Performing Stragismo and Counter-spectacularisation: Italian Terrorism and Its Legacies aims to show the importance of spectacularity in shaping the collective memory of a traumatic past. Through a participatory practice that included video-recorded Zoom conversations with 20 participants, the project encompasses the under-represented narratives of Italian women who were young adults in the Seventies.
The first outcome of the research was the 10-minute moving image work Fuori Programma [Unscheduled], which broadcasts the memories of the first nine participants.
The second was the interactive installation Siamo in linea, which included six tablets, each dedicated to a new participant. The audience could select a question or more, having an “interview-like experience”. The installation is also available online as a web page and through my Instagram account.
The third and final outcome was the live performance Fuori Programma; six students from the University of Edinburgh engaged in a theatre workshop in the Italian language; four out of six are not Italian speakers and five are not theatre professionals.
The performance draws a line between the memories of the aftermath of World War II and the following decades, asking: through which models are collective trauma and collective memory elaborated and transmitted intergenerationally?
Find out more