MY FASCIST GRANDPA

According to American historian Ann Laura Stoler, the term aphasia describes the inability to talk about one's past, especially in the context of colonial power relations.Drawing on my family history, which is primarily related to my grandfather, who fought in the fascist army in Ethiopia, I employ participatory archival methods to deal with materials (family photographs, letters, objects, official documents) that belong to what is commonly called a "difficult heritage”. Relating the intimate to the monumental heritage site of Borgo Rizza, built in the 40s by the Entity of Colonization of the Sicilian Latifondo shifts the connection of institutional memory linking it to the personal and the affective, stressing its connection with a violent historical past, not often critically discussed. I mixed my family's narratives with those collected through informal invitations and open calls, and organized site-specific public displays of such items on the modernist architecture, activating and reworking the materials individually or in collaboration with others through workshops, exhibition and live-painting projections. Exercises in dealing with histories that, being located in our proximity and intimate sphere of affection, reveal the normalization of ideology and oppressive systems of power among people. Making possible connections between local histories and collective memories, and bringing the discussion from a verbal to a visual level, this work problematizes my and many others' grandfathers' involvement in the fascist regime in Italy and in colonial settlements, activating and putting in connection intimate archives, proposes strategies that can lead to healing processes, collective discussions and shared counter-narratives.