2024 marks the centenary of the Italian writer Goliarda Sapienza (1924–1996), whose work, long overlooked, is now recognised as one of the most significant in Italian literature, thanks in particular to the posthumous success of her monumental The Art of Joy.
The exhibition IUZZA reveals the investigation conducted by Italian photographer Francesca Todde (1981) in the footsteps of the novelist. Born in Catania, Sicily, to parents at the forefront of socialist, trade unionist and anti-fascist activism, Goliarda Sapienza lived through the twentieth century, by turns as an activist, an actress and a writer. From the vast narrative landscape sketched by her life and work, few images have survived, save for a handful of portraits of her, invariably adorning the covers of the various editions of her books. It was then that the idea took root in the photographer’s mind to complete this landscape.
Travelling to the places where Goliarda Sapienza lived and gaining access to her archives, with the help of Angelo Pellegrino, the writer’s partner, Francesca Todde unfolds a panorama of the highly personal imagery inspired by Sapienza and Sicily. Her photography is poetic rather than illustrative; she captures the images left on the shores of the work, abruptly cast upon volcanic rock or gently laid upon the sand of Positano. Here we find the landscapes of Mount Etna and the stuccoes of Catania’s Baroque palaces. We encounter flowers sprouting from basalt, undulations of fossilised lava, the amber eye of an octopus, the gaping skull of a dwarf elephant and, in their wake, Cyclops and Titans and other resurgences of Sicily’s Greek mythological origins.
All the photographs taken by Francesca Todde between 2017 and 2024 are brought together in a small, thick book published to mark the centenary: a collection of images like a collection of letters addressed to Iuzza, the writer’s childhood nickname.
The exhibition’s cultural programme is presented in partnership with Terres de Paroles, Normandie Images and Normandie Livre & Lecture.
Free admission
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