My PhD project Performing Stragismo and Counter-spectacularisation: Italian Terrorism and Its Legacies aims to demonstrate the importance of spectacularity in shaping the collective memory of a traumatic past. Through a practice-led research – which included, so far, 27 hours of interviews with Italian women who were young adults in the Seventies – I investigate the reasons behind Italy’s divided memory (Foot, 2009). Can Italian collective memory be challenged and renewed through a participatory practice? How are collective trauma and collective memory transmitted intergenerationally? What is the role of gender in the transmission of collective memory?
Fuori Programma (Unscheduled or Off Plan) is a short moving image work (10 minutes) that broadcasts the memories of a group of Italian women about the Seventies. Separately interviewed, the women’s contributions are edited in a conversation that gives a visually entertaining and moving insight on an important chapter of Italian history from an often-unheard perspective.
Irene Ros, University of Edinburgh