Delémont, 1977; Lausanne, 1975
The work of Raphaël Cuomo and Maria Iorio
is part of the recent interest the visual arts
have taken in the construction of memory
narratives. The artists draw their inspiration
notably from “microhistory,” a genre that focuses
on, for example, the life of an individual in order to
expose the particularities of the community in which
the person lives. Through their film Appunti del passaggio,
(Passage Notes) Cuomo and Iorio recreate
different traumatic episodes punctuating the
lives of Italian guest workers who came to work
in Switzerland in the 1960s, including passing the
cross-border zone in the Alps, the health inspection,
even the abandoning of villages in Southern Italy by
their inhabitants. Featuring personal accounts
performed by actors, commentary on archival
material, and sites that are revisited by
the filmmakers, their film breaks free of
strictly historical discourse by developing a way
of sharing that leads down the paths of fiction
and interpretation.