The Mottolese Archive is a research project focusing on a video archive never made public: the fifteen-years-long documentation of the local environmental struggles created by Piero Mottolese, a 70-years old former worker of Taranto’s ILVA. The largest steel-plant in Europe, ILVA was held liable for environmental and health disaster. Involved in a history of ecocide historically rooted in the systemic harm of communities and ecosystems in Southern Italy, since 2005 Taranto has been home to a civil society’s engagement of great complexity. The actual archive’s footage includes demonstrations, civil disobediences, meetings of activists, confrontations with politicians, labor strikes, personal stories, seizures of contaminated flocks and mussels and much more, in a flow of experiences embracing the history of a city. The project aims to collectively constitute the archive as a common good while exploring the intertwined layers of locality and globality in environmental justice through the lens of political ecology.
Promotors: Nico Dockx (Academy), Pascal Gielen (UAntwerp) and Nele Wynants (UAntwerp)
Research Groups:
Culture Commons Quest Office
Archivolt
Science at The Fair (SciFair)
(photo: film still from The Mottolese Archive)
