‘MESSINA: A CITY WITHOUT MEMORY?’
Video essay. London, 2005, 55 minutes. Colour. English and Italian with subtitles.
Director: John Dickie
Editing and Camera: Dan Sayer
Introduction
The earthquake’s legacy: is Messina a city without memory?
Monuments and memory
There are few monuments to the earthquake victims in the city. (For more on earthquake monuments follow this link.) It is difficult to map the streets and buildings of Messina as it is today over the city destroyed on 28 December 1908 . Place and memory have come uncoupled.
The monumental cemetery
Recently Marcello Saija rediscovered the lost graves of members of his family who died in the earthquake…
For more on Messina ’s Gran Camposanto follow this link.
Shanty quarters
Messina still has many areas of temporary housing which are, rightly or wrongly, often thought of as a legacy of the earthquake.
1: Bisconte Bisconte was built in the Fascist area for those housed in wooden post-earthquake shacks. Several voices recount its transformation from ‘semi-rural’ residential area to crowded and run-down shanty quarter.
2: Giostra
Giostra has been an area of temporary housing since immediately after the earthquake of 1908. We interview a local voluntary worker and a woman who lives in one of Giostra’s infamous shacks. What role to narratives about the earthquake play in their perceptions?
