When a person's first and last name alone remain and their entire life implodes in that Angioletta Nerina or Iolanda Benvenuti or in the birth sign of sixteen other young women, time needs bodies.
Of those eighteen girls who lived the war with body and suffering, and fought against it, partisans, it is necessary to restore their image and likeness.
Since the early nineties, Lenz has given performative form to a Non Serena Art, confronting a definition of the Romanian Jewish poet Paul Celan that establishes the impossibility of the word after the drama of the Shoah, as a zeroing imposed by the paradigm of collective death. The theme of the tragedies that occurred during the Nazi-fascist period appeared recurrently in Lenz's poetics, with various versions by Bruno Longhi (1991, 2005, 2015), and with Viale San Michele. Before the Cellars Whitewash (1990, 2021).
Since 2015, Lenz Foundation has made its historic multi-year dramaturgical research project permanent, continuing to annually produce a series of contemporary performative works, seminars and days of public reflection dedicated to the themes of the Resistance and European tragedy during the Nazi-fascist dictatorships and created in collaboration with ISREC Historical Institute of the Resistance and the Contemporary Age of Parma.
In the three-year period 2022-2024, Lenz's artistic investigation on the themes of the Resistance and the Holocaust focused on the role and biographies of the Partisan Women of the Parma Resistance and in particular was dedicated to the ‘Little ones’, the very young partisans, little more than teenagers during the years of the Resistance, of which historical research has managed to recover/preserve only slender documentary traces. In 2024 on the occasion of the April 25th Celebrations, Maria Federica Maestri and Francesco Pititto curated the site-specific macro-installation inside the Parma City Council Hall.
The Little Girls video installation is dedicated to eighteen Partisans who were little more than teenagers during the years of the Resistance, of whom historical research has managed to recover and preserve only slender documentary traces.
It is precisely from the void dictated by the biographical absence that Little Girls's artistic act is committed to giving body, voice and face - through the figuration of eighteen school students - to those girls born between 1926 and 1937 active in the fight against Nazi-fascism, transposing the pure adherence to the smallness of the personal data (of many of them only name and surname remain) in an echo of words of today, of contemporary faces of the same age as if they were traveling through time through the virtual semblance of real memories.
Little Girls is created with the scientific advice of Fabrizia Dalcò, historian and journalist, in collaboration with the Historical Institute of the Resistance and the Contemporary Age of Parma, which has made available the database created by Maddalena Arrighini, composed of a list of forty-eight young women engaged in partisan activity, of whom very little documentation is preserved - for eighteen of them only names and surnames.
The performers are students of the Sanvitale socio-pedagogical high school and the Toschi artistic high school, of the Vicini and Fra Salimbene middle schools, of the Montanara Youth Centers and Casa nel Parco - The School of Doing.
When a person's first and last name alone remain and their entire life implodes in that Angioletta Nerina or Iolanda Benvenuti or in the birth sign of sixteen other young women, time needs bodies.
Of those eighteen girls who lived the war with body and suffering, and fought against it, partisans, it is necessary to restore their image and likeness.
Imagoturgy of the time, from name and surname only to visits that are all different, virtual but in real memory of lives lived, not behind but within that name and surname.
The documentary image, the visual painting, the real and imagined dialogues are what remains so that time continues its ellipse-like tour and, restoring body and voice, everything does not return identical to before.
But can I keep my hair loose?
No, they can get caught between the branches.
But we're not in the woods.
We might even have to go.
Can I wear trousers?
Yes, if you have to pedal it's better than the skirt.
And the shoes closed.
Not sandals?
No, closed and better ankle boots. Or boots.
Why do you wear lipstick? I'll put it on too.
But if you're ten...I'm wearing it because I like it.
And then I'm eighteen.
The other week, they took away a family with small children, Jews from Parma.
Maybe in Salso, and then they said in Germany.
In the fields?
Almost certain, do you understand children?
Children with mothers.
I brought messages here and then up, you had to see the faces,
dull as if dead and then red as fire with anger.
Yes, but they have to wait.
With death in their hearts but they have to wait.
I feel like throwing up.
We will never take away what we experience now, ever again.
The air is cold up in the mountains, but if you breathe deeply it becomes lukewarm inside.
Then it's pure.
I don't participate with weapons, I just go to the highest point and see if anyone comes.
They gave me a gun, in defense they said.
And keep it clean.
We sleep inside jute bags covered in clothes
made of wool, all together in a large room.
All together to keep us warm.
I know that for a girl the danger is greater.
Even if we are not all armed.
A girl is already prey, if she is a relay she is
even more.
They can hurt you a lot, a lot if they catch you.
For them it's a party, in a group they feel strong, bosses to do what they want to you.
A much coveted trophy, more than just any prisoner.
Original text, imagoturgy Francesco Pititto
Installation, composition Maria Federica Maestri
Performer Consolmagno Iris Sibilla, Iori Maria Karouachi Rim, Lisambi Nesi Pereira, Lulia Nonkane, Margarita Sofia, Marino Francesca, Omar Yasmin, Pelosi Agata, Signifredi Martina, Trappolini Viola, Valenti Sara, Birouk Nora, Cantarelli Alessia, Gurpreet Kaur, Nwabisi Frances, Peter Shalom, Uccelli Gaia
Curating Elena Sorbi
Organization Ilaria Stocchi
Communication, press office Elisa Barbieri
Promotion, graphic design Alessandro Conti
Technical care Alice Scartapacchio, Dino Todoverto
Production assistant Giulia Mangini
Historical advice Fabrizia Dalcò, Maddalena Arrighini
Photographic documentation Elisa Morabito
Production Lenz Fondazione in collaboration with ISREC Istituto Storico della Resisitenza e dell’Età Contemporanea di Parma
and the support of La Giovane S.c.p.a.
To carry out artistic, performative, educational and residential projects, Lenz Foundation has the support and collaboration of the following public and private institutions:
MiC – Ministero della Cultura, Regione Emilia-Romagna, Comune di Parma, AUSL Parma DAI SM-DP, Università degli Studi di Parma, Istituto Storico della Resistenza e dell’Età Contemporanea di Parma, Fondazione Monteparma, Chiesi Farmaceutici Spa, Intesa Sanpaolo, Koppel A.W. Srl, La Giovane S.c.p.a.
