Women from Lazio as seen by Alinari

Exhibition at Rome's Bramante celebrates region's resilient women throughout the years

Il pane e le rose. Donne del Lazio nelle collezioni Alinari ("Bread and Roses. Women of Lazio in the Alinari Collections"), an exhibition that follows in the traditional editorial line of Florence-based Fratelli Alinari, is displayed in the prestigious space of Rome's Cloistre of Bramante. "Thanks to this exhibition, a gap was filled," declared Region Lazio President Francesco Storace; "namely, the regional identity gap: behind those photos lies the recognition of a culture."
The exhibition, curated by Maria Immacolata Macioti, includes 236 photos selected from those kept in the Alinari archives: vintage prints and reproductions of original plates illustrate and document the women of Lazio, portrayed in the cities, towns and countryside where they lived, worked, and contributed to enriching, with their labour and ingenuity, this territory's already rich patrimony of tradition, history and culture. The exhibition itself is arranged in seven sections: "Women at the dawn of photography"; "The society of good manners"; "Individual work, collective work"; "Women and wartime trouble"; "Between sacred and profane: religious festivals, popular festivals"; "The '70s, women in politics"; and "Celebrities".
The exhibition opens with turn-of-the-century peasant women: wrinkled faces, marked by fatigue, and gnarled hands used to farm work. They mostly appear working at jobs that progress wiped out. They are seen carrying water in copper vases held over their heads, or washing clothes at the public fountain. These determined figures can also be seen in their festive moments, e.g. resting after a long day of work, or attending one of the many religious and civic festivals that abound in their Region. Beautiful young women distributing strawberries, cherries, and flowers.
In addition to "commoner" women, there are the aristocrats, wearing long and flowing dresses, with tiny umbrellas open to shield themselves from the sun and wide-brim hats that hide their faces, giving those ethereal figures a mysterious aura. There are also some newly-released images of women of the House of Savoy, portrayed in moments of splendour, way before the catastrophe of war. A very interesting section is devoted to the troubles of women in Lazio in wartime, with images of Red Cross nurses busy doing their volunteer work, evacuated mothers and children lining up for some food, and women replacing men in their jobs.
From that, the exhibition moves on to the '60s and '70s: a period of social unrest, urban disorder and widespread conflict. A new season of struggles for women's liberation began, stemming from the widely shared belief that women's role had to comprise the public sphere, not be restricted to the private world. Finally, there are the women of today, experimenting new roles and new jobs: pilot, police officer, army officer; and the well-known faces of actresses, singers, intellectuals, authors, musicians, entrepreneurs.
This exhibition recognizes the key role women played in the history, traditions and culture of Lazio. This is an innovative exhibition, for the beauty of photos depicting a different epoch and contemporary portraits of women. Despite having no pretense of exhausting such a faceted issue, it helps us take a closer look at women, from the most famous to the totally unknown.
The exhibition brings to light a simple truth, too often forgotten: in such a rich territory, projected towards the future, the role of women has been, is and always will be decisive, especially because it is not restricted to this region but reverberates onto a wider social reality.
The exhibition was organized in collaboration with Cotral, and the catalogue has been published by Alinari.

Publication Date: 2004-11-28
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4652