Through the female gaze: women and work in Italy since the 1950s
Through the female gaze: women and work in Italy since the 1950s
Italian Cultural Institute in Edinburgh
8 March – 30 April 2022
The exhibition looks at how female photographers have explored work, especially female labour, in contemporary Italy, with over 100 selected images from the work of 12 women artists and two collectives, together with important loans from the Collezione Donata Pizzi and a selection of images from UDI (Union of Italian Women) Archive in Bologna A constellation of women from different generations are brought together through their shared use of the medium of photography as a means of personal emancipation
and political inquiry. The selection includes: Paola Agosti, Marcella Campagnano, Lisetta Carmi, Liliana Barchiesi, Letizia Battaglia, Cristina Omenetto, Collettivo Donne
Fotoreporter, Nicole Gravier, Gruppo del Mercoledì, Allegra Martin, Gabriella Mercadini, Michela Palermo, Alessandra Spranzi, Francesca Volpi.
The exhibition is curated by Maria Chiara Di Trapani and coordinated by historians Ilaria Favretto (Kingston University)and Nico Pizzolato (Middlesex University), with
collaboration of Eloisa Betti (Università di Bologna and UDI).
The show is displayed in the rooms of the Italian Cultural Institute in Edinburgh, into a long sequence mostly in black and white, accompanied by two video projections.
The images fow together like in a feature film, essentially in black and white. The punctum of this “continuous fow” is the reciprocal seeking out and looking at each
other with respect and empathy, in a game of reflected mirrors, in which the difference or distance between the person behind the lens and the one in front melts
away.
