Sofia Rafaella Greaves
Turbulent pasts: listening to Fascist legacies
Photography, Predappio 2027
A few notable contributions notwithstanding, the reflection on how to grapple with the memory of Fascism has remained impressionistic and regrettably devoid of any real insights or ideas. Giulia Albanese, 2016
A century later, Fascism seems to many only a matter of history. Lots of Italians would prefer to forget it, and many of its material traces have been erased or repurposed. But in Predappio, Fascism has impossible to forget. Mussolini’s body was buried in the family crypt in the town cemetery after the war, and the flow of blackshirted tourists has never dried up. And erasing Fascism’s material traces in Predappio would mean bulldozing practically the entire town. Paolo Heywood, 2024
This art-science collaboration will develop new ways of engaging with the material legacies of Italian fascism. Drawing from theories of more-than-human listening and memory, we will adapt techniques from acoustic science to develop ways of acknowledging the architectures of the regime and the effect they continue to have. Rather than glorifying these buildings as monuments of Fascism, this project seeks to cultivate a critical awareness of imperialism, subjugation, oppression and violence which is based on finding ways to listen. Partly this involves addressing the eery "silence" of these abandoned buildings through technologies which extend our ability to hear. We will also be adapting photography techniques to visualise the invisible.
The project will be based in Predappio where the subterranean Caproni tunnels created for airplane construction are now reused by the CiCLOPE centre for turbulence research (The Centre for International Cooperation in Long Pipe Experiments). Taking inspiration from the study of turbulence in Predappio, we ask how techniques for studying turbulence might be adapted to the understanding of Fascism as a turbulent past.
Relevant articles
https://www.politika.io/en/notice/the-memory-of-fascism-beyond-predappio
