News of october
Two women, two generations. Their testimonies, a story by Licia Ugo and an essay on gender and technology.
“My generation grew up without any real idea of what the future held”, says Ro, reflecting on the decision to have children in a world beset by environmental, political and social crises.
Franca Gianoni was born in 1935, experienced war and displacement, lived through the era of political and feminist movements, and built her life around independence and freedom of choice.
Two women from different generations, whom we meet this month through their testimonies in the Live Archive. Accompanying them are two very different texts: a short story by Licia Ugo, which reconstructs her relationship with Franca through her memories, and an essay by Ro herself on the relationship between bodies, gender and digital technologies.
Franca Gianoni: “I didn’t talk about freedom, I was living it”
Born in Pula in 1935, Franca spent her childhood during the war and had to leave her city as part of the exodus. She became a teacher, took part in political and feminist movements, chose not to marry or have children, and kept her relationship with Anna private.
Today, she retraces her life story, from her childhood in Istria to her years in Bologna and Florence, recounting the experiences, encounters and convictions that have shaped her choices.
A story by Licia Ugo
Alongside Franca’s account, we are publishing the story written by her cousin.
Italy, the 1960s. Licia is ten years old and has just returned from Australia, where she spent a free and adventurous childhood. She has just lost her mother and finds herself living with her grandparents in a small-town, closed-minded Italy. It was during this difficult period of her life that she met her cousin Franca, who was twenty-seven years old.
Meeting Franca opened up a whole new world for her.
There are the yellow nappa leather sandals, the white Cinquecento, swimming in the sea at Pula, the concerts, the endless discussions about films, and the books given as Christmas presents. And that question, ‘Sorry, where was I?’, with which Franca would suddenly interrupt her stories, only to pick them up again with enthusiasm as soon as someone reminded her of the last word.
Franca is a teacher; she works, studies, participates in political life, and believes in social justice and the possibility of changing things. Through her own example, she shows Licia that a woman can be independent, choose how to live, and break free from conventions and social expectations. For her, growing up in an environment that was very different from the one she knew in Australia, Franca became her first role model of a free, independent and hard-working woman. Guardian of her inner child and a source of inspiration she cherished throughout her adult life.
In the short story “Sorry, where was I?”, written in 2014, Licia returns to those years and to that bond which was so important to her upbringing, portraying Franca in all the richness of her character.
A heart-warming family portrait that invites us to consider the women young girls encounter as they grow up, the role models they can identify with, and the extent to which these encounters can influence the way they envisage their own future. In Italy in the 1960s, just as today.
Ro: “My generation grew up without any real idea of what the future held”
Ro is a university student who has studied and travelled in various countries. In her testimony, she reflects on what it means to belong to a generation that has grown up amid ecological crises, political instability and hyperconnectivity, with the feeling that imagining the future has become increasingly difficult.
It is also from this uncertainty that her reflections on motherhood and the responsibility of bringing children into the world arise. But her narrative extends to a conception of care and generativity that does not necessarily involve biological reproduction: we can leave something behind for those who come after us through the relationships we build, the communities to which we belong and the way we inhabit the world.
Notes for Bodies Out of Place
What happens when our bodies become data? When an app records the menstrual cycle, a platform asks us to declare our gender, and an algorithm learns to recognise behaviours and preferences – what does this mean?
In her essay, Ro explores the relationship between digital technologies, gender identity and the possibility of self-determination, moving between feminist thought, queer theory and reflection on contemporary transformations.
The digital world has helped to make identities and experiences that the old categories could not encompass visible and viable. At the same time, every new opportunity for recognition can become information to be recorded, classified and used.
And algorithms can reproduce inequalities without even making a mistake: all they need to do is learn to recognise as patterns what are, in reality, the product of social and power relations.
An article that shuns easy answers, without denying either the opportunities offered by technologies or the contradictions that run through them.
👉 Lunàdigas’ Live Archive continues to collect stories, reflections and testimonies. Your memories and experiences can also help to enrich it.
Write to us at_info@lunadigas.com, or get in touch with us on any of our social media channels to continue the conversation together!
