“Adelmo and the others” arrives in Florence. Confined homosexuals in Lucania”, a documentary exhibition that for some years has been making known a little-known part of the history of our country: the homocaust, or the persecution of the LGBTQIA+ community in fascist Italy, and the use of confinement as an instrument of repression .
Hosting it from May 13th to 26th will be the Deportations Memorial, the new Tuscan memory center, which has become home to the Italian Auschwitz Memorial.
The exhibition is a project by Agedo Torino (Association of Parents, relatives and friends of LGBTQIA+ people) curated by Cristoforo Magistro, who carried out documentary and iconographic research at the State Archives of Potenza and Matera.
The installation in the Tuscan capital, proposed by Agedo Livorno, was created by the Tuscany Region to celebrate, again this year, May 17, the International Day against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The choice to hold the exhibition at the Memorial is a contribution to the valorization of an extraordinary place of Memory and allows the exhibition to be visited during the opening days and hours of the Memorial itself, thanks to the collaboration with the Museum of Deportation and Resistance Foundation , the association of former deportees (Aned), the University of Florence, the Municipalities of Florence and Prato.
The inauguration is scheduled for 12pm next Monday in the “yellow room” of the Memorial in viale Donato Giannotti 81, in the presence of the curator who will give a brief introduction and lead a guided tour of the exhibition. The regional councilor for the Culture of Memory and equal opportunities will speak, together with Enrico Iozzelli, from the Museum and documentation center of deportation and resistance, and Rita Rabuzzi, president of Agedo Livorno, representing the LGBTQIA+ regional table.
The photo-documentary exhibition is made up of 31 panels and has already been presented in numerous cities, including Turin, Genoa, Padua, Bergamo and Bologna. It tells the story of the people sent into exile in Basilicata during the fascist period for their sexual orientation or gender identity. It takes its title from the name of the youngest – 19 years old – of the prisoners whose events we are trying to reconstruct. The stories are told in a didactic manner, inevitably partial, and reconstructed from the analysis of police papers and judicial documents.
The story of those confined in Basilicata for “pederasty” emblematically represents the essence of repression against homosexuals. Control and persecution, marginalization and discrimination are the essential aspects of the fascist attitude towards people deemed “abnormal”, so different from the image of the virile man promoted by fascism.
“Adelmo and the others” will be open to visitors on Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 1pm. Reservations are required at the email address [email protected] or at the telephone number 0552768224.
The exhibition will also be open to visitors from 4pm to 5pm on Friday 17 May, when the International Day against Homolesbobitransphobia will be celebrated through an initiative (at 5pm) created in collaboration with the Regional LGBTQIA+ Table and the Tuscan local authorities adhering to the RE.A Network .DY., the national network of Regions and Local Authorities to prevent and overcome homolesbobitransphobia.
