Italians posing between public and private. Theories and practices of Social Heritage

Abstract

According to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Heritage (Unesco 2003), from the point of view on Social Heritage, the Family Photo, and by extension Family Albums, play a particular significant role. In particular, Family Albums are a specific referent point for conservation, transmission and development of a community Social Heritage. At the same time, Family Album can be considered “places” of the Italian memory and places of transmission between public and private, because the photography, since its debut, is a public space, as if to say: posing is already being in public. Amateurs photographs and professional photographs offer a chance to see a visual history of Italy and so a visual history of dominant ideologies, perceptual and cultural models of Italian life. In this sense, with Family Album we can analyzed the continuous interweaving between the idea of history and history of ideological, economic and political thinking, factors influencing consumers, tastes change and the impact of scientific progress. Specifically, Family photo is a new source for the study of Italian family’s history, that is “The True Homeland of the Italian” and so the institution on which the national identity is found (Ginsborg 2001).