A photographic portrait of Porpora Marcasciano, human rights activist, writer, sociologist and honorary president of MIT (the Italian Transgender Identity Movement).
Porpora collects the photographs that, since 1990, Lina Pallotta has taken of Porpora Marcasciano, a historic Italian trans activist. The project intersects private, everyday life and collective struggles, becoming an image of a complex and layered human experience. The publication seeks to acknowledge an exceptional story that goes beyond the individual protagonist and becomes a collective narrative, addressing the issue of visibility and representation of the trans experience.
Porpora brings together an extensive selection of Pallotta's photographs and four textual contributions by Porpora Marcasciano, Kae Tempest, Raffaella Perna, and Allen Frame (each from different positions: the marginal and militant and the art-historical). The last section of the volume, "Archives," includes over one hundred and fifty documents granted by the archives of some of the TLGBQI+ associations present on the Italian territory. The documents, selected thanks to the comparison with activists, historians, and experts, gather some insights through which to reconstruct the political movements and struggles crossed by Porpora Marcasciano.
"Porpora Marcasciano, a prominent figure in trans activism in Italy, allowed herself to be photographed in her daily life by her friend Lina Pallotta. Pallotta has now published this intimate and poetic portrait in the book 'Porpora,' a visual embodiment of the slogan 'The personal is political.' [...] By showcasing both the intimate and daily life aspects and the activism of the trans experience, 'Porpora' becomes an essential historical and political testimony of the trans community's history in Italy."
Zoé Isle de Beauchaine, The Eye of Photography
An Italian documentary photographer born in San Salvatore Telesino (BN), Lina Pallotta moved to New York in the late 1980s where she received her diploma in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the Center of Photography. Her fierce motivation to make a difference drew her to the underground scene, to subcultures, to Mexican women, to underdogs, to tell stories that normally don't get told. Her most notable works include Porpora e Valerie (2013) and BASTA – To Work and Die on the Mexican Border (1999), on the lives of Mexican women who work in border factories.
Her work has been shown in personal and collective exhibits in Europe and the United States and published in national and international magazines.
