Visconti Presents at Westminster

On December 15, Francesco Arese Visconti, Head of the Media Communications and Photography department, participated in the Annual PhD Symposium organised by the University of Westminster, London, where he is pursuing a photography practice based PhD. The aim of this symposium is to present the work in progress of the CREAM (Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media) Doctoral Researchers.

In his presentation, Arese Visconti outlined the main structure of his research ‘GENUS – Generational Shifts – Italian Migrants in Switzerland after World War II.’ This goal of this photographic based research is to explore the identity of Italians that migrated into the French part of Switzerland in the 1960's and the generations which followed them. In addition to photographic portraits, the qualitative research will involve interviews to add information about the Italian community resident in Switzerland. To determine the ways in which these four generations of Italians have developed their identity, twenty subjects representing each group are in the process of being interviewed and photographed. While their status as migrants and being the second generation of migrants could be similar (e.g. living in a foreign country far from the country of origin), each individual will show different aspects coming from personal experiences, education and work environment. There will probably be similar feelings of displacement, unresolved grief, and transitional issues very common to the groups with differentiations for the more recent migrants.