Transmedial cultural praxis: Towards the dissipation of Italian colonial amnesia

Abstract

How do creative practitioners use transmedial praxis to illuminate Italian colonial amnesia and address the persistence of colonial mentality in the present? And how can transmedial praxis promote collaboration across activist groups and social movements engaged in this struggle? In this paper, I examine how writers, artists and activists engage collaboratively with transmedial practices in an attempt to destabilise hegemonic narratives of Italy’s colonial past. 

‘Viva Zerai!’ is an interactive map published on the blog of the writers collective Wu Ming in January 2021. The map uses coloured pins distributed across Italy’s geographical map to show streets, squares, monuments and public buildings that, to this day, bear the names of the colonial massacres, imperial possessions and historical figures that enabled the Italian expansionistic project.

The digital map holds a transformative potential, as it challenges dominant colonial narratives while fostering collaboration and new cultural approaches to representing and discussing the past. Indeed, ‘Viva Zerai!’ sparked activist collectives across Italy to come together under 'La Federazione delle Resistenze' (Federation of the Resistances) and utilise platforms such as www.resistenzeincirenaica.com and social media to exchange cultural practices and historical knowledge, as well as to coordinate efforts aimed at revealing colonial residues in urban topography. Here, I argue that these organizational strategies align with Sasha Costanza-Chock's concept of 'transmedia organizing' (p. 49). Examining digitally enhanced collaboration and meaning co-creation, I demonstrate how these groups strengthen social movement identity, achieve political and economic victories, and alter public consciousness regarding Italy's colonial past and its continued impact upon the present.