Piazza Alpi-Hrovatin 1889-1994

web app and photographic panels, 2023

https://www.valentinalapolla.it/piazza-alpi-hrovatin/

This work was commissioned by the Il Prisma project and curator Angelika Stepken as part of an exhibition in the Le Piagge area, a public housing district on the outskirts of Florence. Built in the 1980s in response to a housing crisis, the neighbourhood was constructed in isolation from the rest of the city and lacked services. It was soon marked by social issues, crime and institutional indifference. However, starting in 1994, thanks to the efforts of Don Alessandro Santoro and the Comunità delle Piagge, the area has been transformed into a hub for solidarity initiatives, mutual aid projects, and grassroots organisation.

The square in front of the community centre is dedicated to the memory of journalist Ilaria Alpi and cameraman Miran Hrovatin, who were killed in Mogadishu on 20 March 1994 in circumstances that were never clarified. At that time, the international mission Restore Hope (1992–1994) was underway in Somalia, a country engulfed in civil war following the collapse of Siad Barre’s regime. Somalia, an Italian colony from 1889 to 1960, had maintained close political and economic ties with Italy even after gaining independence; these ties were often characterised by exploitation and corruption. The story of the two journalists is intertwined with these shadowy relations, including arms trafficking, toxic-waste dumping, questionable cooperation projects (such as fishing boats, roads and wells), and the involvement of Italian intelligence services.

I retraced the places linking the journalists’ story to the history of Italian colonialism: from the late-19th-century penetration expeditions—during one of which Ilaria Alpi’s grandfather was murdered; to the road traveled during the journalists’ final journey, beneath which toxic waste is suspected to have been dumped, originally built by Fascist troops during the Migiurtinia war; and finally to Cape Guardafui, with its lighthouse shaped like a fascio littorio, where the cooperation ships suspected of carrying weapons—on which the journalists were investigating—were seized.

I gathered numerous archival sound materials and interwove them with a textual narration read by Cristina Abati to create twelve audio tracks, each dedicated to a place in Somalia and positioned within the Piagge area according to the correspondence between the two maps, accessible through a geolocated web app.

Like many Italian mysteries, the murder of Ilaria Alpi and Miran Hrovatin remains unresolved to this day, despite decades of investigations and inquiries, marked by cover-ups and false scapegoats. The audio tracks piece together this complex story in fragments, revealing a century-long history of colonialism, corruption and racism that continues to resonate in the present.