Fotografia, cittadinanza e memoria: donne faccia a faccia col Fascismo

Abstract

The photographs of women activists in Fascist War on Women. Facts from Italian Gaols, a pamphlet published in England in the mid-1930s, remind us of Fascism’s hidden and sustained violence against alternative subjects and experiences. While analyzing the space opened by the gaze of these vulnerable subjects, the essay reflects on photography’s heuristic value for a critical understanding of history and citizenship. As a resistant material, photography rescues a forgotten past and interrogates our collective memory. As a “weak monument,” the photographic image reveals the impaired civic space of Fascism, questioning the nature of the regime’s commonly perceived visibility.