Contemporary art dealing with European Fascisms and their traumatic legacies: re-elaboration, 'difficult' heritage, critical display.

From the perspective of a comparative approach, the research project ARTonFASCILEGACY aims to study the complexity of different Fascisms experienced by some European nations, based on an analysis of a heterogeneous corpus of artworks and artistic or museum mediation projects which, from the post-war period to the present day, have been more or less directly concerned with Fascism, the latter being considered as a national or transnational phenomenon. The work of art (especially in the fields of visual arts and cinema, but also in literature and theatre), the artistic intervention on a building or monument connected to the fascist period, a strategy of museum display of an artefact related to Fascism, are thus apprehended here as a field of theoretical analysis that gives rise to new trajectories of reflection (historiographic, aesthetic, political and anthropological) on the phenomenon of Fascisms and on the reelaboration of their traumatic legacy. Through a network of university partners at European level, ARTonFASCILEGACY aims to set up a series of workshops and conferences in the various European countries, producing publications in journals that favour an interdisciplinary approach and creating a website to serve as an archive and means of reflection. The PI will produce a monographic book on the subject. The further objective is to go beyond the university boundary and disseminate the work done through a travelling exhibition in various European cities. This exhibition will not only bring together the many works of art which, from the post-war period to the present day, have reflected on the various Fascisms, but will also offer the general public, in a format that is comprehensible and attractive, the scientific documentation. The expertise acquired in this field will also make the project a scientific and advisory reference for all those institutions (at local, national and European level) that are faced with memory controversies related to the Fascist era.