[:it]
“"A Community on Display: History of the LGBTQIA+ Movement": Visit the online virtual tour of Arcigay's exhibition on 200 years of struggles.
Access the virtual tour of the exhibition
Arcigay's exhibition on the history of the LGBTQIA+ movement opened to the public for the first time in Sanremo (IM) on 9 and 10 April 2022, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the 1972 Sanremo festival.
The exhibition brings together various narrative nuclei: the pioneers of the Movement in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the persecution during the Nazi-Fascist period with the so-called Homocausto, the internment in psychiatric hospitals with the story of Gino Grimaldi and his internment in the Psychiatric Hospital of Cogoleto (GE), the demonstration in Sanremo in 1972, publishing in the 70s, the history of AIDS, the history and reflections of the Trans* movement, the history of Arcigay, the elaborations of the Waldensian Church and the gay and lesbian camps of Agape in Prali (TO), and then personal testimonies.
The 50th anniversary of the Sanremo Festival was an opportunity for Arcigay to understand the LGBTQIA+ community's profound interest in the history of our Movement. The year-and-a-half-long process of preparing the exhibition was a journey of education and awareness about a history we define as wonderful. Wonderful because it is not only a precious history, but also a diverse one, rich in people and reflections.
Contemporary Italy entered this narrative forcefully on April 5, 1972, when a group of people from the nascent Italian homosexual movement gathered in Sanremo to protest the First International Congress of Sexology, which aimed to address homosexuality as a pathology. It was the movement's first truly public and visible outing: a disruptive protest and a demonstration of pride. LGBTQIA+ people resolutely proclaimed that from then on they would not be relegated to the shadows, that their voices would be heard, and that they would speak for themselves, not leave others to speak for them.
But this historical moment required previous stages, both distant and recent in time, which prepared the years in which we find ourselves today.
Following the exhibition of Sanremo, the exhibition was entirely on display from 4 to 20 May 2022 at the Rectorate of the University of Siena in collaboration with the University, in particular with the Single Guarantee Committee (CUG), and with Arcigay Siena.
In collaboration with Comites New York, reproductions of the signs from the Sanremo event paraded at the Pride Parade in New York June 28, 2022.
The section dedicated to the 1972 Sanremo event was exhibited at Milan from June 30th to July 2nd at the Elfo Puccini Theater in collaboration with CIG Arcigay Milano and Milano Pride on the occasion of Milan Pride Week. The same section was then transferred and set up in Trento in July 2022.
From 4 December 2022 to 29 January 2023 some sections, including the one dedicated to the Holocaust, were exhibited in collaboration with Arcigay Arezzo at the Teatro Auditorium Le Fornaci in Terranuova Bracciolini (AR).
The exhibition was displayed at Cremona from April 29 to May 17, 2023 at the Arcigay Cremona headquarters in collaboration with the Circolo Arcipelago.
Subsequently, the sections dedicated to Sanremo 1972 and the Holocaust were set up at the Luigi Pistilli Municipal Theatre in Cori (LT) on May 27-28, 2023 in collaboration with the Mariposa association and Arcigay Latina.
Thanks to Arcigay Rieti, some parts of the exhibition were displayed at Rieti from 20 to 28 June 2023 at the Coop Futura shopping centre and therefore this core has been moved to Montopoli di Sabina (at the local Coop, July 14-September 8, 2023) and Cittaducale (9-16 September 2023).
From 17 to 26 November 2023 the exhibition will be set up at Ma.PS – Macelli Public Space in Piazza dei Macelli in Certaldo (FI) in collaboration with the Municipality of Certaldo and the Center for Studies, Research, Promotions and Cultural Activities – Social Enterprise.
The exhibition was then displayed in the Priamar Fortress in Savona From April 6 to 21, 2024, in collaboration with Arcigay Savona and the Municipality of Savona. A virtual tour was created for this occasion. This was followed by an exhibition of Wedge in collaboration with Arcigay Cuneo and the Municipality of Cuneo from May 3rd to 11th.
The exhibition installations and experimental work underway since 2022 are the preparatory stages of a broader process that will see the construction of an exhibition in September 2025 in the city of L'Aquila in collaboration with Arcigay L'Aquila on the occasion of the bicentenary of the birth of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, born in Aurich (Kingdom of Hanover, now Germany) on 28 August 1825 and died in L'Aquila on 14 July 1895.
[:]
