FOTOGRAFISTE

Women in photography from italian archives, 1839-1939

• Linda Bertelli, Principal investigator, IMT SChool of Advanced Studies Lucca
• Nicoletta Leonardi, Associate Principal Investigator, Accademia di belle arti di Brera

• Sara Catenacci, co-investigator
• Agnese Ghezzi, Research collaborator
• Marta Equi Pierazzini, Post doctoral researcher
• Greta Plaitano, Post doctoral researcher
• Emanuele Carlenzi, Research assistant
• Martina Cavalli, Research assistant
• Alessandro Masetti, Communication collaborator
• Livia Torchio, PhD Student

Why are there so few women in the history of photography? Some scholarly contributions have shed light on the obstacles that prevented women from succeeding in photography, as well as on the ideological foundations of a history of photography that prevented them from becoming visible within dominant narratives. Despite this, women in photography remain largely undetected, especially those active between the medium’s invention in 1839 and the outbreak of World War II in 1939. 

This project is aimed at giving visibility to women in photography during the first one hundred years of photographic history by retrieving their identities and stories from three thus far scarcely accessible Italian photographic archives: the photographic collection at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, the “Fondo Varie” at the Photographic Archive of the City of Lucca, and the “Fondo Tori” at the State Archive in Lucca. Fotografiste stems from cataloguing projects currently being implemented by the RUs on these archives, bringing them together under the banner of women’s history.

By moving beyond medium specificity, this project offers an alternative to dominant narratives shaped by traditional art history. It looks at photographs not solely as authorial images, but also as parts of integrated networks of different media, businesses, practices, technologies, fields of knowledge. Through a more inclusive and diversified, photographs are integrated with other types of sources, such as manuscripts, specialised journals, books, ephemera, business and civil registries. 

The findings are clustered and analysed through machine learning techniques and network analysis, allowing the tracking of significant relationships between items and their restitution into an integrated system of interpretation and visualisation. 

Items linked to women in photography are located within the selected archival sources and made accessible to users. This results from the recovery of neglected materials, the questioning of archival standards, and the advocacy of an intermedia and cross-disciplinary approach to the history of photography built on the dialogue with women’s history and gender studies. 

Intended results of this project are the following:

• Creation of a database of women active in photography in Italy (1839-1939) 
• Creation of new archival series 
• Development of guidelines 
• Training courses for archivists 
• Development of a digital platform for the visualization of results 
• Georeferenced maps and open platforms 
• Public tours, historical walks 
• Open day on data, archiving tools, and gender gap 
• Project's Website 
• Publications 
• Conferences 

Louisa Geraldine Bate Macpherson and Robert Turnbull Macpherson, The Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum, c.1857. Albumen print 27.8x40.6 cm glued onto cardboard 48.9x63.9 cm. Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Historical collections, Photo library [F_00429]

Virginia Gargioni and Giulio Rossi, Study of a female hand, ca. 1870. Albumen print 20.1x24.6 cm glued onto cardboard 31x35.7 cm. Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Historical collections, Photo library [F_00839]