The Places and Words of Enrico Berlinguer

The places and words of Enrico Berlinguer is the title of the exhibition that - with the contribution of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, the partnership of the Municipality of Cagliari, under the patronage of the University of Cagliari, in collaboration with the Gramsci Foundation, Cespe and the Foundation of Sardinia, and managed by the cooperative Sémata - will be re-staged and hosted in Cagliari at the Covered Walkway and Gallery of the Bastione Saint Remy.

The exhibition, conceived and organized by the Enrico Berlinguer Association for the preservation and enhancement of the cultural heritage of the Italian left, in collaboration with the Gramsci Foundation and Cespe, was presented in Rome at the Mattatoio, Special Company Palaexpo, in Bologna at the Civic Archaeological Museum, and in Sassari at the 'Eugenio Tavolara' craft pavilion with great success.

The Enrico Berlinguer Foundation offers the exhibition to the Sardinians, adapting it to the needs of the hosting spaces and integrating it with a new section dedicated to the relationship between the PCI leader and his homeland.

Enrico Berlinguer was one of the protagonists of twentieth-century political history, secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1972 to 1984, a leader of rare moral stature, rooted in the real country and respected by his opponents. On the fortieth anniversary of his death, the aim of the exhibition is to contribute to rethinking the political legacy of Enrico Berlinguer by retracing his biography through original audiovisual, sound, photographic, and archival documents.

The exhibition aims to restore not only his image and words but also the strength of his thought. Through a historical and iconographic narrative, it allows to reconstruct Berlinguer's itinerary using documents from his archive (kept at the Gramsci Foundation), some of which are exhibited in their original form along with newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, and audio-visual materials (mostly provided by the Audiovisual Archive of the Workers' and Democratic Movement and by Rai Teche) and a selection of reportage photographs.

The documentary material has been organized into five thematic sections: affections, the leader, the Italian crisis, the global dimension, current events, and the future.

In order to fully outline the figure of the statesman, specific focuses have also been introduced: the contribution of the Italian Communist Party to the reforms adopted in Italy from 1968 to 1984; the international relations woven by Berlinguer that underline the global dimension of his leadership; the political violence and terrorism, a dramatic constant of those years; the books dedicated to him to highlight his particular historical-political importance. Finally, in its Sardinian stage, the exhibition is enriched by a section dedicated to Enrico Berlinguer in Sardinia.

Credits: Enrico Berlinguer Foundation.