ITALIAN FEMINIST PHOTOGRAPHY. IDENTITY POLITICS AND GENDER STRATEGIES

The IFP (Italian Feminist Photography) project sets out to analyse the contribution of women to the history of Italian photography, within a framework of the progressive spread of demands for feminist emancipation and identity, according to the most recent perspectives offered by gender and feminist studies. The reflection will also be extended to practices which, while outside of any militant positions, helped to underline a specific policy of construction of the female imagination and different self-assertion strategies. Aiming to study and enhance the presence and role of women photographers in Italy, and highlight the effective circulation of their work, the research will be divided among the three identified research sites, each investigating three different channels through which both explicit and militant, as well as implicit and/or anticipatory, feminism can be framed in history: 1) magazines and periodicals, starting from specialist art and photography publications, which promoted the works and fostered critical and interpretative readings, 2) the catalogues and materials tracing their presence in national exhibitions, events and shows, 3) private and public archives, as well as collections and museums, which over time have kept and structured these works. The research of documentary sources (articles and essays), and the mapping of public and private institutions that have safeguarded these contributions, will be studied starting from a gender standpoint – linked to the study of social, cultural, philosophical and historical dynamics defining identities and viewpoints – which will lead to an understanding, by comparison, of which photographic models and paradigms dominated feminist photography in Italy.