Veronica Orlandi

Thesis: Partire da sé. Art and Feminism in 1970s Italy

Supervisor: Professor Sarah Wilson    Advisor: Professor Klara Kemp-Welch

Funded by Consortium for the Humanities and Arts South-East England (CHASE)

My project examines artistic practices within Italian feminism in the 1970s, foregrounding the creative dimensions of activism. It draws on a rich yet underexplored archive of materials produced by feminist collectives – scripts, photographs, printed matter, banners, and films – and expands beyond established artists to include experimental, non-professional, and collective forms of art-making. Focusing on feminist spaces such as demonstrations, group gatherings, and women-run initiatives, the project reconceives these contexts as key sites of visual production. In doing so, it reveals a vibrant creative scene where a feminist vision could be articulated outside institutional constraints, often reaching women beyond established cultural spaces and generating a more immediate social impact than male-dominated art institutions and galleries.